I'm one of the Windows users who will be avoiding Windows 8 like the plague. I know my desktop is still there, but I NEVER want to see that Metro UI on my 30" monitor. And you can laugh and say that it's just Microsoft being reactionary, but from what I've seen it sure looks like Apple is slowly trying to bring the tablet experience into the laptop/desktop world.
I'm hoping that the opposite happens with Windows 8. I'm hoping that Windows 8 ultimately gives us usable computers in the tablet form factor: with the full filesystem, functionality, and development environment of a desktop operating system. It's something that Microsoft tried before with pen-screen Windows tablet PCs, but they were bulky, and grafting the regular windows UI onto a pen-input screen sucked. Now they're trying again, and I'm hoping they get it right this time.
I agree that a pure tablet user interface on a full size keyboard/mouse PC is an awful idea, and I'm sure that Metro is going to suck on the desktop for a version or two. But if that's the growing pain, so be it.
Even if Windows 8 crashes and burns in the marketplace, if it at least manages to push someone else (Apple, Android, whoever) to finally make the above possible, then we still come out the winners.
My wife hardly ever touches the desktop (mac mini) at home, she pretty much uses her iPad for everything, notes, emails, web browsing.
That statement right there cuts to the heart of this whole thing. For many consumers, emails and web browsing
are everything. That's why the iPad sells so well. It does the same thing that companies tried to do ten+ years ago with WebTV and the i-Opener, but this time the form factor makes it genuinely convenient and useful for those things.
Me, I want more functionality, because my computer is more than email and web browsing to me. And I'm hoping Windows 8 will eventually let me have that in an iPad-sized box.
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