The year is 1995, no wait that was 17 years ago… It seems a lifetime since the quantum shift from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95. What is my litmus test for quantum change? Stick a teenager on a Windows 95 machine and they will be able to get around, albiet begrudgingly. Put that same teen on a Windows 3.11 machine and depending on the crowd and their upbringing  a WTF will soon be issued.

This was exactly how I felt when I downloaded a pre release of Windows 8.  WTF? Where is my start button, what are these widgety things, how do I find my “real desktop” and come on Redmond this looks cool, but my desktop is not an iPad.

I get it, no I really do. Change is in the wind, the PC is a complex device capable of so many things and relied upon more and more everyday, by more people to do more things. So what is the problem? Market penetration is my guess. Call it simplification, or dumbing down or spoon feeding the masses, computing is not easy for everyone, so everyone doesn’t own one or two or three. Believe it or not there are people that don’t have a smart phone, tablet, laptop and desktop. But just imagine if a company could make a simple interface, sort of like an iPad that would work and look the same regardless of the device. Welcome to Windows 8.

It is a brave new world of technology and Microsoft is jumping into the future with both feet. The legacy desktop that greets us every morning is not the first thing you will see when you fire up your PC. You will however see smart tiles that portray basic information pulled from “apps” yes, I said apps not programs. The software model is too lucrative for MS to ignore. Selling small, purpose built applications available instantly from their store, MS wants to cash in on the short money sales. Easier to part with $2.99 than worry about plunking down$299 for office, especially when all you need is word and excel. I’ll take my software ala carte please…

So welcome to 1995 all over again. We will all beta test Windows 8 for MS, just like we bought Vista, you remember that buggy short lived platform that bought MS some time to get Win7 stable. I am sure Win9 will be out in Q1 of 2014 and be the polished, tweaked and stable version of Win8 we should be getting now.

Personally, I will get one of the new MS surface devices which will drag me into Win8, probably learn to love it and if it suits my fancy, it may lead to a Windows phone purchase. I am not planning to install Win 8 on my desktop anytime soon, I have little hair left to pull out these days and frankly just want things to work right so I can get right to work.

Want more info or a personal recommendation for new hardware? Feel free to contact me !

(written on my iMac)