Should all Internet Device User Interfaces be the Same?

Ask yourself whether it is especially helpful for all your digital devices to use a similar look and feel. How important is it that your PC, your tablet, your smart phone and possibly other devices have a similar user interface? Microsoft is about to find out, it appears, with the launch of Microsoft 8. 

Making radical changes to Windows poses a risk for Microsoft as enterprises and other large organizations prefer to reduce technology risk by deploying mature, stable, well-supported products, Gartner argues. 

Windows Vista, for example, never gained significant success in corporate environments, and its lack of success can be glimpsed in the market share statistics. Gartner estimates that just eight percent of PCs run by Gartner clients ran Vista at its peak. 

The bottom line is that IT leaders are questioning whether Windows 8 will suffer a similar fate, Gartner argues. 

"Microsoft's approach is very different from Apple's and Google's, where phones and tablets have much more commonality than PCs and tablets," Gartner says.  The new "Metro-style" user interface, which includes large buttons for touch and eliminates the ability to boot to the familiar Windows Desktop and have a traditional Windows start menu,  is probably the most controversial decision Microsoft has made in Windows 8, Gartner says. 

The result is an operating system that looks appropriate on new form factors of PC hardware including tablets, hybrids and convertibles, but has people questioning its appropriateness for traditional desktop and notebook machines, which comprise the majority of the existing PC market, Gartner notes.