Windows 8: A Note of Skepticism
By Harry McCracken | Monday, December 5, 2011 at 10:21 am
As ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley reports, IDC thinks that Windows 8 will be “largely irrelevant” to users of conventional PCs, at least in 2012. The company is probably talking about corporate users more than consumers, but it does raise an interesting question which nobody can answer yet: Are real people going to be excited by the prospect of using the simplified Metro interface with a keyboard and a mouse?
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6 Comments For This Post
December 5th, 2011 at 10:36 am
I have been using Windows 7 for a couple of years now, and I think it is great. Probably the best OS Microsoft has made. I am in no hurry to go to Windows 8, especially not when Windows 7 has been working well for me. This may end up being like how people clung to XP because it worked, skipping Vista before moving to Windows 7. Based on what I have seen of Metro, I'd much rather stick with Windows 7.
December 5th, 2011 at 11:47 am
Windows versions are like Star Trek movies: every other one is good.
December 5th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Windows 8, specifically the Metro touch interface, represents a huge shift and a retraining point for millions of corporate users worldwide. It also represents a complete redesign requirement for application vendors that have been making point-and-click software (of variable quality) for decades on the Windows/x86 architecture. Corporate IT managers (and I am one) don't make that many massive changes at once lightly.
It's possible Windows 8 will really take off with consumers, especially on tablet-style ARM-based devices. Perhaps corporate IT folks will be pressed to adopt it by users, much as the iPhone and iPad have infiltrated corporate IT in the last couple of years. However, for as far as these consumer technologies have gotten, they're still not the workhorse technologies.
Windows 8 (again, Metro specifically) will be a curiosity for at least 2012 and 2013. Assuming it takes off — and that's a huge assumption — you won't see broad corporate adoption before 2014 at the earliest.
Any businesses that adopt it sooner will either [a] focus on the non-Metro interface exclusively, or [b] use the Metro interface a bit because they've already put most of their apps into web-based cloud services, so it doesn't really matter.
December 6th, 2011 at 5:25 am
It reminds me of the active desktop, a nice idea on paper but given I don't expect to spend my time looking at the metro screen (for weather feeds etc.) like i dont use widgets/or the active desktop features currently (rss feeds/news reels are just a distraction) It will just become another nuisance and therefore will not be being deployed as long as I can avoid it
December 6th, 2011 at 5:59 am
Windows 8 will NOT be embraced on the corp desk top anytime soon. Win 7 has several more years of life left in it. It'll see adoption through the consumer channel before corp.
December 7th, 2011 at 8:24 am
Having played around with Windows 8, I just don’t see how this will be accepted on the desktop. Tablet, maybe.