I bet a lot of people just wanted to come along in case they get a free Surface or Windows Phone 8 at the end. ;) As for the success of Windows 8, I think it's

I bet a lot of people just wanted to come along in case they get a free Surface or Windows Phone 8 at the end. ;) As for the success of Windows 8, I think it's simply not possible to estimate how well it'll be received by the average Win7 user. Microsoft is releasing so much new stuff this year - most or all of it designed to work together - that I don't think it's valid to look at just one thing (eg the 'schizophrenic'-style UI of Windows 8/RT) and claim that because it's not awesome, the whole new direction that Microsoft is taking will invariably set them on a downhill path. The data simply aren't in yet. It'll be an interesting 6-ish months before we'll see how this multi-billion dollar experiment will work out.