Windows 8 is coming…

Elcom’s front end developer guru Adam just emailed me about the Windows 8 showcase presented by Steven Sinofsky and Julie Larson-Green at the WSJ’s All Things Digital conference, D9. It is my first sneak peak of the new OS and I’m blown away by the wholesale departure from the traditional interface.

Everything seems to have moved to what Julie called a “touch  first experience” supposedly meaning the whole interface is built for touchscreens. Whilst the innovation appears to be awesome, this is seismic shift in UI, and I shudder when considering the training requirement for MSFTs massive base of corporate denizens, not to mention Mums and Dads that feel right at home with a start button and associated menus on the bottom left of the screen. The trusty start button has been around since Windows 95. Will we happily adapt or be dragged kicking and screaming? It is a major handrail move, in fact if I were using the handrail analogy for this OS I would say it replaces the handrails with a levitation device. Could it lead to a hugely delayed migration as change managers grapple with the cost of changeover and Mums and Dads turn to Apple in frustration?

Innovation is awesome but the trick will be bringing us users along for the ride.

Here is the vid…