What do you think about Windows 8? the results

We recently ran a short survey to get feedback on the Windows 8 preview.  The results are interesting, because as you can see, the responses are pretty close in most areas – well, except whether or not Windows 8 will be a business success.

What do you think about the Windows 8 user interface?
Love it!		26.92%
Hate it!		40.38%
It’s OK…		32.69%
Do you think Windows 8 is applicable to business?
Yes		38.46%
No		28.85%
Only for tablets		32.69%
Will Windows 8 be a business success?
Yes		28.85%
No		71.15%
Will Windows 8 be a consumer success?
Yes		53.85%
No		46.15%

 

And, some of the comments are even more interesting:

I haven’t been able to locate a start button. This OS is (at best) only good for tablets. or even PC’s with touch screens. Useless for other machine applications.

Windows 8 will do well on touch enabled devices

Windows 8 will be a business success just like how Vista was a business success: All the numbers will indicate that people are buying it, and Microsoft will claim that it’s the fastest selling OS in their history. That doesn’t mean that most of its” users will actually like it.  Vista was a fine operating system with some major faults that were fixed (mostly) with Windows 7. Unless there are some major changes coming to the business version of 8, I see the same thing happening here.

Not being able to re-enable the Win7 Start Menu is the big mistake. So much continuity is lost going back and forth between Metro and the desktop. This is especially apparent with Win8 Server.

So not business ready at this time, except when used on a tablet.

Of all the shapes that could have been considered, squares were the least interesting option. Naturally, Microsoft chose it. Get back to me when they start looking at fractal shapes that could more organically take people into different levels of information.

Installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview and found it not just confusing, but extremely frustrating. Even after finally figuring out how to move around to different windows and apps, I still find it extremely cumbersome. If this is the next version of Windows, I’m skipping it.

Windows 8 is a dumbed-down consumer-oriented OS, not suited for business use or for use by anyone who creates content rather than just consuming it. It’s clear that the desktop user interface is on it’s way out at Microsoft. They really just want to sell their phones. Our office is still running 100% XP machines, and new machines are routinely re-imaged with XP. It just works and everyone likes it. If Microsoft knew what was good for them they would continue to support XP for a fee past 2014. As it is, there’s no way they will dare cut off support with the number of businesses that will likely still be relying on it in 2014, not to mention the number of Macs running it in Parallels. XP”s market share actually increased this past January and March, while 7 and Vista both declined. Microsoft needs to get a clue and listen to what it’s business customers really want.

EPIC FAIL.