Mind they’re not going to just stop selling Windows 7, so it’s not like MS will be abandoning its traditional market.

Windows 8 is if nothing else a experiment as well as a gamble.  It’s the first time MS has seriously tried to integrate both desktop and mobile UI optimizations. 

While people generally are resistant to change.  So it’s understandable that some will over-react and either love or hate what they think MS is doing but until people get their hands on the final product and really give it a chance is when we’ll really know whether this succeeds or whether it will divide the MS market between Windows 8 for mobile and Windows 7 for traditional systems.

Anything else right now is just speculation and that rarely accurately predicts what will really happen.

Even if history repeats, it isn’t always played out exactly the same way and may have it’s own unique twist(s).

While there’s a lot a desktop OS can offer than a mobile OS can’t, like access to better web browsers just for starters.  So don’t think legacy support is all Windows has to offer… While a schizophrenic OS is pretty much unavoidable for any OS that intends to support both Tablets and Desktops, and it remains to be seen whether MS won’t develop the desktop side further and allow users the choice of sticking to the desktop mode if that’s what they prefer.

Btw, one of the things MS is working on is the ability of a tablet to switch to a more powerful CPU when docked.  So further Windows system may also have the advantage of becoming a laptop or even desktop by just docking it and still using the same OS and all user data without worry of sync.

They’re also apparently going for a much simplified versions lineup this time around as it seems they’ll just have Windows 8 (replacing Windows 7 Home Premium), Windows 8 Pro, and Windows 8 Enterprise.  The Server version will just be called Windows Server 2012 though, which may mean they may divert that from the rest of Windows 8 a bit.

While the reasons they’re pushing the Metro UI is it allows for cross platform apps that will work on both ARM and X86 systems, better power optimized apps that will help these new Windows systems be more power efficient, and MS eventually plans on pushing other technology they are working on like their Kinect for example.

Windows RT actually stands for WinRT (Runtime), which is what allows for those cross platform apps and is thus the emphasis for Windows 8 on ARM.

The problem is it may be a over emphasizing of the tablet optimized UI and not enough desktop optimizations.  The Start Menu for example may only be offered as the Metro version for example.  Though MS has heard the complaints and they’re still only in Alpha stage of development and we’ll see with the Beta/RC releases whether they listened or not. 

But like I mentioned, this may be part of MS’s long term plans and they may not be worried about the desktop user base with Windows 7 still available and more concerned about penetrating into the mobile market.

Desktop users aren’t being left completely out as some are trying to emphasis though as Windows 8 does have the desktop mode, it’s just the Start Menu may only be offered in Metro.  But the Charm menu and other features gives similar functionality as Windows 7 has, like the program search feature.

While they’re baking in lots of nice features like better memory management, raid like drive management, better virtualization, among other enhancements.  Though it depends on which version you’ll be using whether you’ll see all of them.  Like the Enterprise version lets you run a copy of Windows from a USB drive for example.

So lots of nice stuff is getting introduced, lots of people are just focused on the Metro UI and don’t fully realize we’ve only seen the previews and it can still be pretty different with final release and with Windows we should also be used to waiting till the Service Release Packages are out before calling it final…

While the vast majority of people would say Vista was very bad.  It’s the reason why XP has survived so long!

Vista was too bloated, the security settings were too annoying, and all the time it took to fix the drivers didn’t help.  While Windows 7 is basically the fixed version of Vista, they didn’t start from scratch but rather just got rid of the bloat and tweaked the OS enough that people found it a lot more user friendly and it ran well enough to run on even netbooks.

Windows 8 is suppose to be even easier to run than Windows 7.  While the Metro UI means it’s the first version with a UI optimized for Tablets and should make significant progress towards getting Windows onto many mobile devices.

The problem is whether they can also keep the desktop experience good enough to not lose the traditional user base.  The preview versions released so far are still only Alpha releases, released mainly to push what they primarily want to change and get the ball rolling on developers to start developing apps.

Especially for Windows RT, since the ARM version won’t be able to run legacy apps and like any other mobile orientated offering they’re going to need a viable app ecosystem to stand a chance.

So it’s likely there’s going to be a compromise and it’s just a question of whether that’ll be a good enough compromise as to whether Windows 8 will succeed or we’ll wind up with a split between Windows 8 for mobile devices and Windows 7 will continue for the more traditional systems.

Metro is one of the worst UIs ever, Microsoft is hoping that with the help of Windows 8 they’ll be able to push Metro and Windows Phone. They are absolutely mistaken, Metro drags down anything it touches, just ask Nokia. It will also sink Windows, people do not like that idiotic pre-schooler looking UI, “Click on the yellow square Timmy”, it looks terrible and has a terrible workflow too.

People are stocking up on Windows 7 licenses. And if the future of Microsoft is Metro, I might just as well switch to OS X.

So if Metro is the future, I have even less incentive to stick to Windows and go instead to Android or iOS.  Those are more mature and supported tablet operating systems and probably significantly cheaper than any tablet Microsoft and its oem partners can put out.  Typical Microsoft, get behind the curve, then overreact. 

Twenty years ago, IBM was struggling to stay relevant in a world whose attention was focused on small computers. They decided that the mainframes were the root of their problem and worked on a strategy to let mainframes wither away so they could focus on microcomputers. Lou Gerstner came along and realized that mainframes were their strength. He pulled IBM out of their tailspin just in time. Look at IBM’s overall health now compared to then. Now Microsoft has decided that it has to ditch a user interface model that has been refined over the course of decades, and jump on the bandwagon of an interface that was intended to make an unusable devise just barely usable. Sad … very sad.

I am not against change, but I do stand for what works, and as an IT professional, my end users will absolutely HATE windows 8 on a desktop environment.  On a tablet or touch environment, for sure. It feels good, it works, but don’t dumb down my desktop experience by acting like I want to spend all my time in a glorifed, start menu.  I don’t.  Neither do most users out there.

Microsoft seems to have decided that fine print is not only good for EULAs but for an OS as well.

On my Windows Phone I have trouble reading the fine print is used excessively there. Should that continue in Windows 8 and its Metro apps than a lot of people will need to pay a visit to their optician and lasic eye surgery may thrive even more ….

FTFY

W7 (at home and at work) has been great. I can see no reason to go to W8 at either location. 

Now in Windows 8, I installed the Beta, played with it for a day and haven’t even turned it on since. It’s frustrating, obviously designed for a touch screen and not a keyboard and mouse, and is just horrible to use. I would love it on a tablet, but will avoid it like the plague on a PC. I don’t want to use a phone/tablet OS on my desktop anymore than I want a desktop OS on my phone. Microsoft needs to learn this one simple thing everyone else seems to already know. Win 8 will be an epic failure.

I think a lot of folks (myself included) are exceedingly hesitant (read: terrified) to jump into W8 until it is heavily vetted and tested in the market, esp wince W7 works great.