Question about Window 8

After Microsoft flunked with Vista, it has regained consumers' confidence with Window 7. For being a W7 user myself, upgraded from Window XP, I'm happy with the performance of W7 myself. Though I, every now and then, have been tempted by Mac OSX, I'm still staying in the MS ship for the time being.

Reading news reports, W7's adoption is viewed as one of the few successful stories that MS can boost these days. Though many companies are still sticking with the decade old XP (mine is one of them :( ), I think many corporate IT would jump on the W7 ship in near future, since W7 is quite stable and not too much deviated from XP in terms of UI.

Now, it comes to recent news of Window 8 which is supposed to be released in 2012. It all started with the fact that MS doesn't want to roll out Window Mobile 7 on tablets. Instead, MS proclaimed that W8 would be the solution. Many people wonder how the hell W8 (without much details, but it was assumed to be big) can be clammed into a tablet to compete with the instant- on iPad running on iOS. I think that's still pending to be seen... I've read some news stories today which reported more details about the features of W8 which would include some gesture interface or kinect type interface. I think that make sense from product evolution perspective. However, I will wonder if W8 will face much higher hurdle in corporate adoption of such ambitious enhancements.

W8 would not be cheap, even if it is on par with W7, why would not companies choose W7 which is a proven system. Also, it seems like, in order to fully enjoy the enhanced features in W8, you will need hardware enhancements, such as touchpad-mouses or tablet. I don't know if companies are ready to indulge in such corporate expenses given the current economic environment. So, there is so much uncertainty in the W8 roll out. Of course, most people will stay put till they see it. For me, I doubt I will update to W8 given my desktop is about 1 year old and my previous one lasted for over 7 years. Considering the halo effect of iPad and iPhone, many Window users have already moved to Mac and never look back. I think W8 is really enemy is Mac and time. Would MS be able to retain those about the defectors (and potential one, me included) on time? That's interesting to be seen.