This is about as big an in-your-face platform migration as has been tried in recent memory.
That's what a lot of people said when Office introduced the ribbon UI concept. It's just a waste of screen space. Menus were fine. It's reorganising for nothing. It'll be a huge retraining code. I'm moving to OpenOffice RIGHT NOW!!111!eleven!
But it turned out that Microsoft's usability guys did know what they were doing. Power users, who were the only ones really making use of a lot of the more obscure menu options anyway, adapted (and realised that their old keyboard shortcuts did in fact still work). The remaining 99.99753% of the market seem to have found that Office apps got easier to use. I don't know a single person, outside of power users, who actually tried out the ribbon-style Office for more than a few days and didn't come to prefer it. And I don't know a single company who spent the much-prophesied fortune on retraining their staff to achieve that result, either.
I'm reserving judgement on Windows 8. I think some of the incremental UI changes in Windows 7, notably the new-style task bar and jump lists, were significant improvements. There were also a few very careless retrograde steps, like completely nerfing the folder view in explorer in about fifteen irritating little ways that were working just fine before. On balance, I do prefer working on my current Windows 7 machine to my previous Windows XP one. If they can build on the improvements with Windows 8, and perhaps correct a few of the long-standing and/or relatively recent irritations as well, I suspect Win8 as a desktop OS will do just fine. If they move too much around without a good reason, break lots more little things without the new top-level UI really being much of an improvement in practice, and make it feel like a dumbed-down UI that is to tablets as dumbed-down Windows gaming now is to consoles, then I suspect Win8 as a desktop OS will be a failure and Microsoft will pay an extremely heavy price for it.
But such is the nature of progress. If everyone plays it safe, nothing ever changes, and sometimes changes really do make things better.
Unlike your suggested "few days" - It took me two years to finally make the migration to the ribbon UI concept, but now that I have - it's hard to believe that I ever used the "menu" UI. For those who love keyboard shortcuts, there is still a keyboard shortcut (discoverable) for all those ribbon options.
In many ways, though - you are right. The transition to the Windows 8/Metro environment is a lot like the transition to the ribbon toolbar. Something that is despised by pretty much everyone at the start. The question that remains is whether people (who make the transition) will love Windows 8 as much as they love the ribbon toolbar.
That's what a lot of people said when Office introduced the ribbon UI concept. It's just a waste of screen space. Menus were fine. It's reorganising for nothing. It'll be a huge retraining code. I'm moving to OpenOffice RIGHT NOW!!111!eleven!
But it turned out that Microsoft's usability guys did know what they were doing. Power users, who were the only ones really making use of a lot of the more obscure menu options anyway, adapted (and realised that their old keyboard shortcuts did in fact still work). The remaining 99.99753% of the market seem to have found that Office apps got easier to use. I don't know a single person, outside of power users, who actually tried out the ribbon-style Office for more than a few days and didn't come to prefer it. And I don't know a single company who spent the much-prophesied fortune on retraining their staff to achieve that result, either.
I'm reserving judgement on Windows 8. I think some of the incremental UI changes in Windows 7, notably the new-style task bar and jump lists, were significant improvements. There were also a few very careless retrograde steps, like completely nerfing the folder view in explorer in about fifteen irritating little ways that were working just fine before. On balance, I do prefer working on my current Windows 7 machine to my previous Windows XP one. If they can build on the improvements with Windows 8, and perhaps correct a few of the long-standing and/or relatively recent irritations as well, I suspect Win8 as a desktop OS will do just fine. If they move too much around without a good reason, break lots more little things without the new top-level UI really being much of an improvement in practice, and make it feel like a dumbed-down UI that is to tablets as dumbed-down Windows gaming now is to consoles, then I suspect Win8 as a desktop OS will be a failure and Microsoft will pay an extremely heavy price for it.
But such is the nature of progress. If everyone plays it safe, nothing ever changes, and sometimes changes really do make things better.