Do You Remember Where You Were The Day Microsoft Died?

Remember this day, kids.  Today is the day Microsoft died.

Windows 8 is a renovation gone wrong, one that will needlessly force people to relearn how they use a device every bit as common as a microwave oven.

“I don’t think any user was asking for that,” said John Ludwig, a former Microsoft executive who worked on Windows and is now a venture capitalist in the Seattle area. “They just want the current user interface, but better.”

Mr. Ludwig said Microsoft’s strategy was risky, but it had to do something to improve its chances in the mobile business: “Doing nothing was a strategy that was sure to fail.”

Little about the new Windows will look familiar to those who have used older versions. The Start screen, a kind of main menu, is dominated by a colorful grid of rectangles and squares that users can tap with a finger or click with a mouse to start applications. Many of these so-called live tiles constantly flicker with new information piped in from the Internet, like news headlines and Facebook photos.

What is harder to find are many of the conventions that have been a part of PCs since most people began using them, like the strip of icons at the bottom of the screen for jumping between applications. The mail and calendar programs are starkly minimalist. It is as if an automaker hid the speedometer, turn signals and gear shift in its cars, and told drivers to tap their dashboards to reveal those functions. There is a more conventional “desktop” mode for running Microsoft Office and older programs, though there is no way to permanently switch to it.

Because when you design your user interface based on the movie Idiocracy,

you clearly hold your users in utter contempt.  The worst part?  This horrid interface will be on all Microsoft platforms, from PCs to tablets to phones.  There will be no escaping it.

Of course, there are a few alternatives out there to chose from.

Apple CEO Timothy D. Cook quipped

You can converge a toaster and refrigerator, but these things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user.