portlandia IT

As of this writing it is about 5 months away from the Microsoft announced release date for Windows 8. You may be wondering “Should I defer new machine purchases until Windows 8 is released?”

We have reviewed the Windows 8 preview and we STRONGLY URGE you to NOT wait for Windows 8 for the following reasons:

1) The new Windows Metro interface is a radical departure from Windows interfaces used on all versions of Windows going back to Windows 95.  You will face significant personnel time losses as your employees become familiar with the interface.

2) Under Metro the Desktop is broken down to a series of “tiles”  The “original” desktop is just one tile out of a series and it is heavily modified.  (for example, there is no “Start” button)  All “legacy desktop” applications run in this tile.

3) Microsoft has introduced a large number of new interface API’s.  Windows 8 crowds all the  regular Windows programs in its “Desktop tile”, and there is significant work that needs to be done to an application to get it to run in its own “tile”. It is unlikely that most business application developers will put the effort into rewriting their applications to be “tiled”  Note that “Tiled” applications will NOT run in prior versions of Windows (like Windows 7)

4) Microsoft has introduced no fundamental changes to the lower levels of Windows, Windows 8 is basically Windows 7 and will run Windows 7 device drivers.  This was done to avoid hardware incompatibilities, but it also gives no compelling reason to upgrade, either.

In summary, rather than using the upcoming upgrade of Windows to make incremental improvements to a very familiar Windows paradigm, easing its adoption into the market, Microsoft is using Windows 8 as a blatant attempt to advertise its Windows Mobile operating system for Smartphones, which so far has been a market failure against Android.

Business owners who don’t purchase hardware until after Windows 8 is released should plan on purchasing either Software Assurance or should purchase a Microsoft Site License so they can back-rev to Windows 7