Windows 8: New UI, but old-school Microsoft

“The integration with the classic desktop though? Wow. It’s. Completely. Fucking. Insane.

The combination is jarring, confusing and ultimately unusable. I can’t even respect it as an interesting attempt, as it just simply doesn’t work. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Metro UI and apps should have been set off in a ‘mode’ – similar to how the Windows Media Center works. The fact that the Metro UI has been integrated in wholesale with the old-school WIMP interface is ridiculous, and more to the point, represents incredible cynicism on Microsoft’s part.

Make no mistake, this is Microsoft falling back on old-school monopolistic tactics to take on an upcoming challenger to their OS dominance. It’s like 1997 all over again, when Microsoft jammed Internet Explorer into Windows in places it didn’t really need to be in order to compete with Netscape. Remember when the entire *desktop* used to be an IE Window? Remember all the security and performance problems that came as a result? Remember U.S. vs. Microsoft? Why in the world do they think this tactic which failed so spectacularly before will work now? Are they psychotic?”

Russell Beattie

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