Posted 09 February 2013 - 04:21
I'm confused why some of you on here expected to, or expect Microsoft to keep Windows the same. It was only a matter of time before something had to give somewhere. It doesn't take much to see that a big change to Start has been coming for some time.
You could tell the Start Menu lost value with the introduction of Search in Vista. Even more so in Windows 7 with app pinning to the taskbar. That was the death knell. Windows 7 killed the Start Menu, not Windows 8. As such, it was time for something new. Windows 8 now sets the foundation for new Windows releases for years to come. The 90's was a good decade for computing, but that time has come and gone. Our "desktop PCs" are no longer bound to the desktop. They're mobile. It's the key to today's computing, whether you want to admit it or not. Sure, people might still have a desktop, but it's nothing they're tied to. It's nothing they have any attachment to. But get between a person and their mobile device, and look out.
Desktop Windows just doesn't have the mobility to carry on much farther without major transformations. This is where the new Start comes in. Now it does. It gives Windows the mobility it needs, while slowly depreciating older features, and removing dead junk buried in the darkest of folders. Even on the desktop it's helping carry things forward as new generations adapt to new computing techniques. I've already seen kids today look at mice as if it were some foreign object. They don't know what it is, as they're growing up with smartphones and tablets. They've learned a smartphone or tablet probably before they learned a PC. They know how to touch and swipe, now all of a sudden, you're telling them to point and click?
If you want to cling to the dull, static, and boring desktop, that's your business, but in all honesty, there's no future in it. Don't expect technology companies to sit around on their asses for you. Technology is all about what's next, not what's behind. The future is in dynamics, mobility, interaction, and sensory technologies. These technologies will drive future user experiences, and system GUIs. They also pretty much guarantee the death of everything you know and love today about any desktop OS you can name. That's just how things go.