ADRz,
What do you do on your laptop? I am curious because I never thought I would have any use for a Tablet either, but as it does have more screen real estate than a phone, and more portable than a laptop I find myself using it ALL the the time. With updated batteries and new cores, we are about to come onto a generation of tablets that have 12+ straight active battery time which is amazing. HD video for an entire flight to China! Developer's are also finally really taking advantage of the way touch screens do work.
Now to this comment "but taking computing back to the Mesopotamian age is not my idea of advance in computing." I think the problem is ... people really feel Microsoft did not do there homework. Does anyone really think Metro was built for just Tablet and cool factor .... and that they were going to force it onto Windows? I need to find the diagram, but it showed that 70%+ users place icons on their desktop over using the search or programs tree feature. They see this ..... now, what they are doing is giving the people to do so in a more organized manner.
For most companies, how many programs do they actually use? Outlook, Excel, Word, Remote Desktop, and 1 or propriety programs? I am graphic designer, and I only use maybe 7-8. All able to fit on Metro and this way I can organize them nicely. I figure businesses will like this because they will be able to lock what programs people see on their start menu .... no more solitaire, no more internet browsing.
As I mentioned, they still have a lot to clean up on it. What matters is not working in the same manner, but an efficient one. Is this is, not now, but with a few adjustments. It's a good start.
Well, this is a decent question. Let me start with what I do not do. I do not watch movies. However, I produce lots of staff including complex technical documents, detailed project timelines, extensive spreadsheets, etc. I work in pharmaceutical R&D. In that context, the last thing I need is a stupid, brainless, full-screen task switcher. I need robust multitasking, multithreading, windowing applications. The windowing is quite essential not only to me but to everybody in the same context. Working on long documents, I need to have documents open while I have open browsers, databases, biostatistical tables, etc, etc and I need to move information from one document to the other, I need to generate complex graphs and tables etc, etc. In this context, the stupid Metro interface is only a hindrance and a serious impediment. MS is devoting time to this utter stupidity, chasing a market it would never catch instead of working in making complex work on the desktop much, much easier. Maybe the average consumer that dabbles in a bit of email and some web browsing is likely not to affected by a non-essential touch interface, but I would be affected quite seriously. Never mind all the time and effort not spend improving the current paradigm.
Have you ever worked in highly demanding situations such as real-time investing in which tones of information has to be on the screen at the same time? Have you worked ever putting together long submissions to the FDA for which you need to be working on a word processor while examining databases, launching SAS programs and examining a long list of PDFed hand-written reports, examining PDF X-rays and MRI images, etc, etc. Why would I want a Metro-interface??? It is for kids and for my grandma!!
Now, consumers with low computing demands may benefit from Metro (debatable) but I seriously doubt that anybody who does any real work would see any benefit, only another stupid layer. Thus, MS is going to be shut out from most of the enterprise. If Apple plays its cards correctly and produces and iOS that provides the richness of working on a desktop, it can make huge inroads while MS is trying desperately to sell a few tablets.
I do not believe that MS would even be successful in the tablet space. Why would anybody want a Windows tablet? There is more compelling content in the Apple and Google (Android) space. What does MS have that can even remotely compete with iTunes and Amazon??? Why purchase an expensive Win tablet when one can get access to superior content on a much cheaper and (in my opinion) far better ICS-driven tablet??? It makes no sense. MS is simply too lake to the party (and it has not even showed up).
And seriously, the Metro interace is far inferior (and I stress the "far") to that of ICS.