Does Anyone Really Care About the Start Menu?

[jnjroach]

Windows 8 is stable and much more secure combined with Server 2012 in the back end makes a compelling story...

 

[Nuspieds]

I do work in the consulting/deployment field and the feedback from our Customers are 100% clear.
Put the start-menu back or we won't upgrade.

Unless a company is willing to completely ditch the Windows platform for another OS, then sooner or later, they will upgrade, Start button or no Start button. They can't keep running Windows <whatever> forever because at one point it will eventually reach its End of Life and MS will no longer support it, provide patches for it, etc. That's not much of a big issue for home users, but it certainly is for corporations.

I, too, work in corporate IT and I know about the effort and costs that would be involved in updating all the documentation, Help Desk training, etc., but at one point the budget and justification for the upgrade will be there and it will be undertaken. Sometimes that justification is driven from the outside: For example, if you have peers/competition who have upgraded to Windows 8, have issued Windows 8 tablets to their mobile employees, and have seen increased sales/productivity/profit, how long can you continue to stay idle and stubborn while your peers/competition either catch up or continue to surpass you?

We certainly aren't there yet with the mass adoption of Windows 8 and the Modern UI but it will happen and there are those corporations out there that definitely do not want to be caught left behind the technological curve.

 

[pallentx]

Like I said earlier. We haven't completely moved off Windows XP where I work because of software compatibility issues. By the time the corporate world is ready to think about Windows 8, people will have adjusted.

 

[pallentx]

Well you clearly missed the point of my entire comment.

What MS realized is that they still want to guide people to a Modern UI future but they need to do it gradually instead of all at once because THAT is how people change, hence the "boil the frog" analogy. MS' error was that they forgot to think like the 80% of users who are non-technical.

Yep, I totally agree. They were throwing the critics a bone hoping it will move some people along. If they had added a start menu back, they would have changed the whole desktop OS that is also touch friendly path they are on. Cascading menus don't work in touch and will be eliminated from Windows - get used to it.