

Fear and Loathing and Windows 8 - rbanffy
http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/fear-and-loathing-and-windows-8.html

======
gouranga
Ok I've actually sat down for 12 hours with Windows 8 now both on a 1998
ThinkPad T61 and a 2011 Sony VPCJ1 multitouch desktop.

Firstly some background - I've been using Windows since 1992. I've spent 15
years now developing software on the platform, both desktop and web
applications in C++ and C#. I also have a Windows Phone.

I actually don't understand why people are complaining about metro and the use
cases as I think they are fine.

The way a Windows machine tends to get used these days is that you drag all
the apps you want to the taskbar and that is it. Occasionally, you would
benefit from some desktop gadgets such as weather etc and occasionally you use
global search. If I look at my taskbar, I have:

Windows Explorer, RDP, IE, Firefox, Zune, Excel, Word, VS2010, sticky notes,
PuTTY.

What I do on my phone is simply: Messaging, occasionally web browsing and
checking the weather.

After 12 hours of Windows 8, I've settled into the following usage pattern
that I actually find satisfying:

1\. Metro has: weather, news, music on it.

2\. Desktop has: everything else.

I spend a lot of time at (2) but switch to (1) if I want a quick status update
of the world, which is simply a press of the windows key away and is just
there! Also if i want to search for something, I use metro.

Otherwise I use it just like Windows 7.

The intended use case is not to throw metro at the desktop users - it's to
augment it.

I don't get all the complaining! I actually like it.

~~~
T-Winsnes
I'm in the same boat as you, I've been using win8 on a laptop for a few months
now. I see no problems with the metro style stuff.

I wonder if a lot of the complaints people put forward are just complaints
because there is a change.

~~~
gouranga
I think you are right. Microsoft seem to occupy the land of the damned if you
do and damned if you don't. If this was apple, I get the feeling that people
would be gushing all over it.

------
edanm
This article makes a great point which I think more people should understand:
"[...] when a platform makes a major transition, people are forced to stop and
reconsider their purchase. They're going to have to learn something new
anyway, so for a brief moment they are open to possibly switching to something
else. The more relearning people have to do, the more willing they are to
switch".

This is exactly right. I'd love to switch to a Mac instead of my Windows,
mostly because so many people do it and enjoy it, and their hardware is
better.

But I've got so many customizations and so much history with my Windows, that
it will literally take me _months_ of work converting everything, and there
are some things I'm not even sure _can_ be converted.

But if Windows 8 will break half the things anyway, I'll really have no reason
not to change to a new OS.

~~~
aiscott
I switched a couple years ago. I started my switch with hackintoshing my
vostro laptop. I did buy a copy of snow-leopard, but even so, it was probably
not strictly legal.

Being relatively early in the hackintosh scene, a few things didn't work.
Mainly the graphics weren't accelerated so all the nice animations in OSX
looked crappy. But it afforded me the opportunity to use it as my main OS for
a while before commiting to anything expensive.

I rather liked the OS and had started iPhone developing. As my vostro laptop
got long in the tooth, I chose to upgrade to a MacBook Pro.

Still using that laptop today, in spite of two or three newer generations of
apple laptops coming out. It's been very nice, for 32 months, no hardware
issues. Last week, I've had a weird glitch where it switches to optical output
when I remove headphones, and this has been annoying. I'll take it into the
genius bar this weekend maybe.

Probably the nicest thing about it is that it hasn't felt it's age. In my
daily usage, I doubt the experience would be any better on newer hardware than
mine is now. Gaming would probably be another matter, but I generally just do
casual gaming.

However, the infamous Walled Garden has been encroaching on the OSX space.
That is something to give serious consideration to. It gives me pause. I've
been thinking about giving linux a go again. Ubuntu has been giving me grief
in vmware, but I'm going to see about dual booting.

~~~
GeneralMaximus
> _However, the infamous Walled Garden has been encroaching on the OSX space.
> That is something to give serious consideration to. It gives me pause. I've
> been thinking about giving linux a go again. Ubuntu has been giving me grief
> in vmware, but I'm going to see about dual booting._

You can have the best of both worlds and run Linux on your MBP. You're in
luck, too, since the new Fedora release supports EFI booting directly from
both DVDs and USB disks. Since your MBP is 32 months old, all your hardware
will most likely work out of the box with Linux.

Early this year I bought an MBP exclusively for running Arch. Things have been
absolutely wonderful. Top notch Apple hardware + an amazing selection FOSS
software. What else can a geek ask for?

------
ixacto
History repeats itself.

MS really screwed up with vista and hardware, now they will do the same damn
thing with software, which will piss people off IMMENSELY and cause people to
stay with win 7 or xp. There are still quite a few small businesses who are
running XP and office 2003 or 7 and office 2007. What is Joe in accounting
going to do when he is confronted with metro and its shocking minimalism,
office is undoubtedly re-designed AGAIN, there isn't any start menu, and when
he is used to old style MS office and XP or in the first place...

There are many, many people out there who stare at
excel/word/outlook/powerpoint all day as the main function of their job. Not
having to re-learn any of the interface is a damn good thing, and OSX is not
too widely used in most places outside the usa/1st world. If MS keeps at it we
might actually see a worthwhile migration to LibreOffice. IMO Office and
enterprise-consulting and possibly gaming are the pillars holding MS up these
days. With Metro they are doing a good job of trying to royally piss off
business customers/it. Remember that most users are too lazy or stupid to go
to addons in firefox or chrome and type in "adblock plus" or similar to
completely remove ads, which would destroy the vast majority of web companies
including Google/FB/Yahoo.

The only other avenue is college students and younger getting hooked on new MS
Metro offerings and deciding that MS cloud office of MS metro office will be
the new standard that the expect when they get jobs. This isn't going to
happen tho, because appple already has the non-ms market and actually has MS
office on the Mac already.

_______

If MS rolls out Metro in its full swiss design-language glory it will actually
be more different and __more difficult __to use than OS X or kde/xfce. It
doesn't just warp the desktop metaphor like gnome and unity are trying to do,
it throws it in the trash and replaces it with a smarthphones home screen.
This is unbelievably stupid and we may still see the year of the linux desktop
xD. Or more likely is that they will realize that their largest customers
including the government/military/accounting firms/everything that actually
builds things (coders included) want the desktop metaphor to remain for
another ten years, and pull a "downgrade" option.

_______

~~~
bztzt
Windows 8 was planned as a consumer-focused release from the start of the
project, due to the expectation that businesses wouldn't be ready for a new
version after just moving to 7 anyway. They really aren't counting on
widespread enterprise uptake, and never were.

~~~
CamperBob2
The thing is, consumers live in the browser these days. In all the discussions
and debates about Metro, the most important factor of all is being left out:
what value does Windows 8 add to _applications_? How will it reverse the trend
that's currently leading toward browser-centric usage patterns?

Even if someone actually wants to run iOS-style weather and stock-price apps
on their PC for some reason, they don't need a new OS to do it.

Upgrading to Windows 8 would be like trading your car for a minivan because
you want a new radio.

------
SlipperySlope
"I am very worried that Microsoft may be about to shoot itself in the foot
spectacularly."

See the video:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qIMuJTrxuhQ)

Just in case you ever have to turn off someone's Windows 8 computer - best
memorize this ...

"In the Metro interface, hover your mouse over the Zoom icon that appears in
the lower right corner of the screen. The Charms bar should then pop up
displaying several icons. Moving your mouse up the screen will reveal the
names of each icon, including Search, Share, Start, Devices, and Settings.
Click the Settings icon and then the Power Icon. You should see three options:
Sleep, Restart, and Shut down. Clicking Shut down will close Windows 8 and
turn off your PC."

Yep, Microsoft buried the shutdown option in the settings menu!

When you see one of these at your local retailer, for a laugh ask the sales
clerk to shut it off.

~~~
tikhonj
To be entirely fair, the normal way of shutting the computer down now is to
use the _start_ menu. Of course, everybody is used to it, but they did have to
_get_ used to it at some point. And they did. So it isn't entirely impossible.

When I used OS X for the first time, I couldn't figure out how to do basic
things either. In fact, as it stands now, I am not entirely certain how to
shut off an OS X computer either.

Happily I'm on Linux and everything makes sense :).

~~~
freehunter
_Happily I'm on Linux and everything makes sense :)_

Unless you're running Gnome 3, where you have to log out _then_ shut down,
since there's no shutdown button while logged in. That's one thing Unity has
over Gnome 3.

~~~
Aethaeryn
You can hold down Alt and then the Suspend button magically becomes Shutdown
in the GNOME 3 shell's menu.

Yes, it's not a very discoverable feature. You basically have to find out
about it on the Internet somewhere.

------
jsz0
Totally ignoring all the specific changes which are very debatable I think the
biggest challenge Microsoft has is a significant number of PC owners are
already on the fence about buying another PC. The one they have works OK and
they have shifted a lot of their day-to-day computing to SmartPhones. Quite a
few of them are already at least casually interested in the iPad instead of a
new PC. When they look at Windows 8 they have to decide if it's worth
investing the time to learn something new in an era when they are using their
PC less than ever. It's kind of the perfect storm with a higher barrier of
entry and a lower value proposition to the consumer in the end. Tablets are a
different situation though I think it's also a huge uphill battle for
different reasons.

The scary part is they have unintentionally interweaved the fate of all their
different platforms together. If Windows 8 is a huge flop on the desktop who's
going to buy a Windows 8 tablet or a Windows Phone? The Metro UI is unique
enough that the taint of failure will stick to it. Metro could become the new
Clippy. The mere sight of it could make people recoil in horror. No one could
exactly tell you why they hated MS Bob, Clippy or Windows Vista. They just
knew you were supposed to hate it because everyone hates it. If that happens
with Metro Microsoft is looking at another 2-3 year 'reboot' and I just don't
think they have that much slack left to work with.

~~~
thought_alarm
_The scary part is they have unintentionally interweaved the fate of all their
different platforms together_

Scary, but completely intentional.

Windows 8 is Microsoft's last chance to effectively leverage their large PC
marketshare into the "post-PC" world of smartphones and tablets. They must
aggressively push Metro onto their Desktop users, and hope that once Windows
users make a significant investment in the Metro environment on their desktop,
they'll naturally choose Metro Tablets and eventually Metro Phones.

And they obviously feel that they do not have the luxury of time. We've never
seen them push so much change in so little time.

But if Windows users hate Metro, the word "Metro" will become as toxic as
Vista and Zune in the minds of the public. And as we saw with Vista, it really
doesn't take much for Microsoft's traditionally conservative Windows users to
turn hostile. The transition from XP to Vista was a baby step compared to
Metro.

Windows 8 is a crossroads for Microsoft. Do they follow Apple and become an
important force in consumer computing and technology, or do they follow IBM
and become a profitable but largely invisible business software vendor?

~~~
sanjiallblue
I started off agreeing with you and then things kind of veered off in the
other direction.

Yes, the "post-PC" world is what Microsoft is betting on right now. Though I
think it should be kept in mind that the launch window between Windows 8 and
the Windows 8 tablet isn't going to be very large and while the there will
plenty of rancor in the tech industry over the transition, a large percentage
of (and maybe even the majority) of casual PC users' first experience with
Metro and Windows 8 will most likely be on a tablet (just so we're clear,
casual users are people who use computers to mostly go on the internet, check
email, do non-tech related small business work like word processing, listen to
music and game). It feels to me that this is a very important distinction.

Those who have been afraid to make the jump to an iPad due to the
unfamiliarity of the concept will now have a mid-ground to bridge that gap.
They have a familiarity with Windows bridged by a new "tablet-like" interface.
These people didn't do much work under-the-hood work on their computers, even
in the simplest terms, so the lack of familiar control panel mechanisms won't
be an issue. So long as the tablet version works, they'll be cool with it.

I also want to add that Microsoft can't follow what Apple has done because
they aren't a hardware company. Apple has become what they are based purely on
the merits of their hardware manufacturing capabilities, methods, models and
the genius/lucky vision of a handful of men. Microsoft doesn't have this
luxury and really that is the greatest risk facing Windows 8, because they're
going to have a hard time putting together a tablet that's financially
competitive with the iPad. Especially with the iPad 2's rumored price drop for
the holiday season.

------
gnahb
Having diddled around with Windows 8 for work, the interface is not as bad for
a keyboard-oriented user as the author makes it out to be.

Examples:

Win + R still brings up Run. From there, all of our familiar .msc adn .cpl are
avalable. Run "control" brings up the control panel. Keyboard shortcuts using
the Win key haven't changed.

Start menu search functionality is available with the same keypresses as in
Windows 7 and Vista. Only the appearance is different. Win key + the first
letters of the program brings up a menu on the right side of the screen
showing matching programs. Enter key opens, or use up and down arrows to
select. A keyboard-oriented user will need to make no changes to their
practice.

Shutdown is not complicated at all. Alt-F4 brings up a shutdown/restart/etc.
dialog.

I'm an experienced Windows user, the type of person the author believes will
have problems, and I had zero difficulty doing what I wanted with Windows 8.
For a mouse- or touchpad-oriented user, some difficulty is foreseeable, but
for anyone who knows their way around keyboard commands, it's easy.

------
SkyMarshal
_> Imagine 90% of the world's computer-using population seeing those tiles
every day. How long before they click on one of them out of curiosity? And if
they like that one, how many more will they try? Picture Microsoft pushing new
tiles into Windows 8 whenever it wants to compete with another web service._

That's what the DoJ sued MS for in the 90s - illegal bundling of products (IE)
with its legal monopoly (Windows) to gain a monopoly in the other products. I
don't know that this is valid strategy for MS to try again.

------
cageface
_The main screen is only for launching applications._

Seems like apps are becoming the new files. Why are all these interfaces
emphasizing app launching so heavily? Most users spend _far_ more time
navigating among running apps than launching new ones. Why are we still, in
2012, so enamored of these artificial data firewalls?

As clunky as Android's intent system can be in practice, the emphasis on
_tasks_ rather than apps is absolutely the way forward. Most users barely
understand the difference between an "app" and a window on their screen anyway
and the app-centric model makes it much harder for them to integrate the
chunks of information they need to complete their task.

~~~
corporalagumbo
What you've said is funny because your words could just as easily have come
from a Windows 8 PR release. They love tasks! They're all about them! Have you
used Metro? The main screen isn't just for launching applications. Tiles can
be simple app-openers, or they can display information, or they can link to
"hubs", or they can be file/website shortcuts. And then, within individual
apps or hubs, the contracts system allows fluid movement and interaction
between different apps and hubs. The Metro model is the very opposite of
artificial data firewalls.

~~~
cageface
I haven't actually tried it yet. Thanks to your words of encouragement maybe I
will this weekend.

------
yaix
Both Google and Apple went a smarter way. They just made two different
operating systems, one for touch and one for PC. What Microsoft is doing will
confuse people only, the touch OS should have a different name.

------
sbmassey
I haven't tampered with it in real life yet, but I don't really understand why
people think Metro is visually attractive.

It appears to be a grid of icons in two different sizes, laid out at random,
with the Microsoft app icons being blocks of unpleasant solid color, with a
white image in front of it.

It's great that these icons can display live content, but the immediate
appearance is ugly to me.

~~~
dpark
> _It appears to be a grid of icons in two different sizes, laid out at
> random_

You can change the layout. You can also choose icon size based on whether the
larger icon is more useful due to 1) increased visibility, and/or 2) increased
space for notifications.

Metro is also a lot more than just the start screen. It's a a style that
describes the entire platform. It's clean and modern, it's content instead of
chrome, it's crisp and legible, and it's free of the pseudo-physical elements
(whether leather or glass or metal or whatever) that have become so common in
GUIs.

The Windows team published a case study that highlights a lot of the metro
aesthetic, and it goes way beyond the design of the tile.
[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/apps/hh86826...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/apps/hh868262.aspx)

> _with the Microsoft app icons being blocks of unpleasant primary color, with
> a white image in front of it._

Obviously, tastes differ. White on solid color is what basic metro tiles look
like, though, and the offenders are the parties who shove their faux-3D logo
into the tile without adapting it to the platform. This is no better than app
developers who do a half-assed port of an iOS app to Android.

Disclaimer: Microsoft employee

~~~
bradford
" ... It's clean and modern, it's content instead of chrome, it's crisp and
legible ..."

I'm also an MS employee, and I really hate it when I see fellow MS employees
talking like this on forums. It's soulless corporate marketing jargon, devoid
of content.

The link you posted is good and helpful, but it doesn't matter, because the
preceding paragraph marked you as a phony in the eyes of the current audience.

~~~
dpark
Meh, I think what I said was accurate. I specifically did not throw out the
phrases "fast and fluid" or "design language" because I was trying to express
how I feel, and not simply repeat the marketing material.

Are the things I said inaccurate?

------
lusr
Ironically, I struggled to read this article on a mobile device (iPhone)
because it hijacks the horizontal swiping which occurs while I scrolled and
kept redirecting me to a different article.

~~~
robryan
Yeah I hate this, also it managed to crash the news:yc app multiple times,
possibly related.

------
thenomad
This thing sounds like a nightmare. Speaking as a Windows power user, they'll
get my Windows 7 when they pry it from my etc etc etc.

(Seriously, people. Windows 7 is generally recognised to be the first decent
to good Windows OS in a long, long while. And now MS are junking that? Aargh.)

Looks like it's backup plan time.

What's the landscape like from a "moving to Linux" point of view these days?
I'm specifically asking from a 3D animator's POV - historically one of the
professions that has the hardest time getting away from Windows. How's support
for 3D Studio Max, Maya, Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects et al?

~~~
Sander_Marechal
> What's the landscape like from a "moving to Linux" point of view these days?

It really depends on the applications you need. There are studios out there
that run everything on Linux. Maya works fine on Linux, but Adobe products do
not run at all.

~~~
CamperBob2
_Maya works fine on Linux, but Adobe products do not run at all._

Gotta wonder if that's about to change. Adobe needs more friends these days.
If there's even the slightest indication that Windows 8 is going to prompt any
sort of migration to "Linux on the desktop," then smart ISVs will have people
working 24/7 on the ports.

If Maya can run on Linux, so can CS6.

~~~
thenomad
Sample size of one here, but if I could reasonably easily get the Adobe
Production Suite, 3DSMax, and a couple of other pieces of unique 3D software
to run on Linux, I'd probably move as and when Windows 8 became otherwise
inevitable.

------
Luyt
Didn't Microsoft see the elephant in the room? The Metro interface will never
work with desktop PCs equipped with (vertical) touchscreens: it's very
fatiguing. From WikiPedia: "the human arm held in an unsupported horizontal
position rapidly becomes fatigued and painful, the so-called 'gorilla arm'"

Also quoted from there:

 _"It is often cited as a prima facie example of what not to do in ergonomics.
Vertical touchscreens still dominate in applications such as ATMs and data
kiosks in which the usage is too brief to be an ergonomic problem."_

------
SpikeDad
I've used and supported Windows PC's and Macintosh's since DOS 3.1 and Apple
DOS so I do have some experience.

I tried W8 Consumer and W8 Pre-release and I still don't get it. Microsoft's
fanatical effort to hide things from users borders on the psychotic. It's why
OS X is superior - everything is right in front of you - apps and files.

Using W8 is like being schizophrenic - every switch from W7 to Metro is like
being hit on the head with a hammer. Just trying to find the secret hidden
spot on the desktop to pop-up W8 options is an effort I don't want to expend.

Just look at the example of OS X and the Dashboard. Initially it was hyped and
promoted by Apple as the next amazing innovation where widgets would be the
way people would interact with services. Although it's still there in Lion and
even upcoming Mountain Lion, it's slowing dying on the vine, hardly mentioned
any longer and widget development is just a whisper. Why is this - well IMHO
it's because Dashboard isn't visible to the user - it's a mode that has to be
toggled to be used. The lesson I take here is that the features of a UI have
to be visible, exposed and easily accessed in order to be used.

To me, W8 flies in the face of decades of experience showing that a consistent
and visible UI model is best for users.

------
noonespecial
Microsoft has such a huge installed base and such a grip on PC makers, all
they really have to do to win is create an OS that doesn't suck so much that
people who buy new PC's feel that they have to remove it before they can use
them.

The lesson from Vista was all of the users trying to downgrade back to XP.
Windows 7 was good enough that people just used it.

They don't have to make something great, or even good really. Just good
enough.

~~~
mtgx
And that's exactly why I think Windows 8 will fail to get traction. In my
opinion it's worse than Vista for "normal PC users". It's even worse than
Ubuntu for that matter, UI and UX wise, for a Windows user that is used to the
Windows XP-7 UI paradigm.

This is the author's video on Windows 8:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIMuJTrxuhQ>

~~~
Aethaeryn
It's not even the Windows XP-7 UI paradigm. Cosmetically, the look has been
updated over the years, but the same fundamental elements have always been
there: a start menu; a panel at the bottom with a start button, a clock, a
place for minimized applications, etc.; a desktop where you can choose your
own background and put shortcut icons; overlapping windows of familiar
applications that have mostly stayed the same in their functions, such as
Windows Explorer and Microsoft Office; and many other familiar features.

They've had this similar UI with minor, incremental changes for: Windows 95,
Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows
Vista, and Windows 7.

Yes, the familiar user interface that people are used to since August 1995 is
going to suddenly change. If you're afraid of change, then it's been mostly
comfortable for 17 years with Vista as the most radical makeover. Yes, there
are now people who are adults who have used essentially the same graphical
interface to their PC's OS for basically their _entire_ life.

People didn't like Vista because it brought fairly radical change to many
things, but to the average user who largely judges an application by its
appearance, this is basically a completely different thing. It's basically
Windows in name only to them. Microsoft might have had more success if they
chose a different name and promoted it as a brand new OS to the average end
user.

This is one massive psychology experiment done by Microsoft as to how far an
average user can tolerate radical change. We'll see how it plays out. Based on
some recent transitions in similar software with smaller user bases (e.g. the
GNOME 2 to GNOME 3 transition), it probably isn't going to be pretty.

~~~
rbanffy
> People didn't like Vista because it brought fairly radical change to many
> things,

I didn't like it because I was expecting something more in line with the PDC
'03 video. What I saw was a disappointing rehash of Windows XP.

------
mynameishere
It's an absolute botch. It's Vista times 1000, and if Microsoft stays on this
road it's downhill permanently.

The most important users are those who don't like childish interfaces. If you
want a tablet-style skin, pay one of your developers 16 hours of overtime to
make it, allow it as an option for mobile users, the end. You don't have to
_completely change everything_ for a damn skin.

------
dsirijus
All UI design and functionality aside, the biggest levee on the adoption of
Windows in last few iterations was the hardware drivers delivery.

I just can't see myself jumping there, especially all in, without having ALL
the drivers on ALL my devices supporting it.

And they'll have hard time getting there compared to either OSX or Ubuntu.

------
aresant
MSFT is a business, and they need new releases to generate revenue.

You look at Metro and it feels like it's change for change's sake.

I wish I could just pay my $100/yr subscription for Windows 7 with minor
tweaks here and there vs. MSFT lumping me into "we must win the consumer
computing war".

You've already got me MSFT, now leave me alone and don't move my cheese
dammit.

~~~
diminish
Here and there I read, a lot of people talking positively of Metro UI; I watch
again and again; I find it so ugly and cheap that I am surprised; am I really
too far away from the average taste. In short, I bet Metro will be a
catastrophe for MS.

------
Noxwizard
One of the inconsistencies that bothered me when I was testing it out was that
you use a swipe motion to get to the login screen, but after that you're
forced to use a scrollbar. I kept trying to drag the screen to get to the
other apps and nothing would happen.

~~~
Ergomane
Just a FYI; you don't need the mouse to get to the login screen. The lock
screen can be dismissed by pressing a key.

------
dochtman
So why did HN allow this to become a new post when I posted it just a few days
ago?

[http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.ca/2012/05/fear-and-
loathi...](http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.ca/2012/05/fear-and-loathing-and-
windows-8.html)

~~~
Aethaeryn
Your link is to blogspot.ca, this link is to blogspot.com.ar. To HN's
software, they seem like two entirely different websites even though the
content is identical.

~~~
dochtman
Ah, you're right. I stared at the URL for a bit, but not closely enough,
obviously.

------
InclinedPlane
There are a couple of big risks with Windows 8, I think.

On the one hand, they could easily alienate power users, who are not just
important for their business but also for their influence. When the CTO of a
big, tech savvy company decides he doesn't want Windows 8 on his or her own
desktop, how will that influence their decisions with regards to the whole
company? For myself, if Metro were out of the equation Windows 8 would be a
sure purchase. There are lots of awesome features in there, like Hyper-V in
the workstation OS (something they should have enabled in Win7) and lots of
other cool stuff. But with Metro being shoved down my throat I might just wait
and see.

Another big problem is that they are rebranding instead of creating a new
brand. They are trying to drag the Windows architecture and brand onto the
tablet platform. I think there's a very real risk that this will tarnish that
attempt. One of the big reasons people have gravitated towards tablets is
because they are so fundamentally different and lack all the traditional
hassles of old style operating systems. I think there's a very real risk that
the public perception of Windows 8 based tablets is that it's just new skin on
old bones. That risk is heightened by the fact that such an assessment is
substantially correct.

And by putting all of their eggs in one unified Metro basket (a classic
"strategy tax" mistake) they risk failure on one leg dooming the other. If,
hypothetically, Windows 8 tablet sales were very weak that could color
people's impressions of the quality of Windows 8 as a desktop OS.

------
buster
So it's the year of Linux on the desktop this year!

------
elorant
I think Windows 8 will be Apple's finest moment.

~~~
nextparadigms
Unless they screw it up with more iOS UI "improvements" inside Mac OS. I don't
think that many liked the new "improvements" in Mac Lion, and most just
learned to live with it.

