Windows 8 is like a queen sacrifice. Windows knows it's burning its bridges, but forcing people to get used to Windows surface. People will hate it on the desktop (because change is bad), but pick a Windows tablet because they've already learnt (unwillingly) how to use it. I'm not saying it's a crap OS, just different. People hate different. Once they get used to it on their PC, it won't be different and they'll buy a Windows tablet.
Then Microsoft can roll back the interface on Windows 9 (making Metro a secondary interface), and corporate buyers will upgrade just to get away from Metro.
I don't understand you. You're here, on a board that regularly discusses, touts, and builds the bleeding edge, but here you are screaming form the rooftops that you hate change...
Tablets are over-hyped like PCs were over-hyped in the 90s. They are in the ascendency. Not because they're perfect for the work that most of us here on HN are doing/want to do, but because they're closer to perfect for the other 95% of humans. They lack many capabilities today that will limit them from being used in specific areas, but those reasons will dwindle over time.
Change simply for the sake of change, isn't good. However, as someone who loves technology, when I see family and friends successfully USING technology without fear of breaking things or feeling like an idiot? Using technology that brings joy? That is change worth supporting.
Take a look at the screenshot. 5 Office versions and there is no change. Everything works just how it did. I like this lack of change for the following reason:
Over the space of the last 15 years, I have actually had the chance to accumulate knowledge.
I'd like to see products like that which withstand that test of time, not fill up the world with short lived fads which result in the "XYZ is shutting down" posts you see here a lot recently. I don't want to have to throw my entire brain's contents out every few years.
The IT industry is the only industry which you can leave with less valuable knowledge than you started with.
The push of the bleeding edge now is churn, not progress. Name a single startup innovation in the last 10 years that isn't either a restrictive reinvention of something else or a landgrab or a lock in tool?
(insert a sarcastic comment on Facebook being akin to a Stasi database running on a Soviet clone of a VAX11/780...).
For reference, I work on a product which is nearly 20 years old now and we've slowly evolved it rather than come steaming on with all guns blazing with hype and ended up in the trash a year later.
Question: Why does it have to be a startup's innovation?
Entire applications now live inside websites. Perhaps you view that as 'lock in', however I can get all of mail out of gmail or dropbox.
The bloat of MS Office is certainly proof that change for the sake of change leads down a terrible path. However, without change, we'd all still be using the nokia 3210 instead of iPhones and iPads.
I understand your perspective, but I disagree that it's the right thing to do. Keeping Excel consistent over the last 15 years may be great for you you but it's terrible for, effectively, everyone else. Anyone learning MS Office for the first time will have to deal with outmoded interface paradigms, confusing icons, legacy feature cruft.
You should always be designing for your next customers, not your existing customers. Keeping legacy clients happy may make sense over the short term, but over the long term they'll slowly drag you down into irrelevancy.
No. The software you sold them should continue to work into the future. I'm saying you shouldn't be afraid to make improvements and leave people behind if they refuse to keep up.
Then Microsoft can roll back the interface on Windows 9 (making Metro a secondary interface), and corporate buyers will upgrade just to get away from Metro.