Wither Windows 8? Windows Chief Resigns

[spuwho]

Per the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323894704578115743753462274.html

Steven Sinofsky who took over the reins on Windows at Microsoft after the Vista debacle has resigned and left the firm.

Windows 8 sales are not doing so well and the overall press for the desktop version has been poor.

Mr. Sinofsky is the second senior software executive to leave a technology giant in as many weeks, after Apple Inc. AAPL -0.77% pushed out Scott Forstall, the head of iPhone software, in a management shake-up last month.

While in charge of Windows, some employees grumbled that Mr. Sinofsky curbed the freedom of engineers. Mr. Sinofsky wrote in a blog post at the time that when he joined the Windows team, on average an employee had seven managers between him or her and Mr. Sinofsky. In a year, Mr. Sinofsky said he believed he had whittled that down to three or four.

Computer and chip makers that had chafed under the dictates of Mr. Sinofsky's team weren't happy about learningâ€"just days before a June public unveilingâ€"that Microsoft was making its own tablet computer, the Surface. Intel Corp. INTC -0.17% also was irked that Microsoft chose to develop a separate version of the new operating system for a rival breed of computer chips.

[Lunican]

I like Windows 8. I upgraded from XP for $40.

[Doctor_K]

I just don't know.  Windows 7 has been brilliant for me. 

How "backwards compatible" is 8 for all of the programs/apps that were designed to run on Vista/7? 

Are there significant adaptation challenges?

[Lunican]

You can run everything that Windows 7 runs and use it the same way you would use Windows 7. The start menu is different and it boots much faster.

I'm not sure there is a compelling reason to upgrade from 7, but it is dramatically better than XP and Vista.

[carpnter]

Windows 8 is great if you have a tablet device, the start screen is well suited to a touch interface.  For those with desktops/laptops I just do not see any reason to upgrade from Windows 7.