单选题
Come July 29th, Windows 10—Microsoft"s successor to its ho-hum Windows 8/8.1 operating system (OS)—will be roiled out to original-equipment manufacturers and certain privileged users. Giving Windows 10 away to qualified users—instead of charging the usual upgrade fee—will be a powerful incentive encouraging Windows users to embrace the latest version within the coming year.
For Microsoft, Windows 10 comes not before time. While nowhere near the unmitigated disaster of Vista, Windows 8 has been a big disappointment for the company. Microsoft managed to alienate whole swathes of customers with Windows 8. The problem was not the underlying operating system, but the radically different interface users were forced to endure. This was built around a start-screen showing programs running in the background, which could be accessed by poking a finger at the appropriate "live-tile" on a touch-sensitive screen.
Microsoft made two blunders when designing this interface. First, it ignored the many lessons distilled from decades of users" experience with Windows. The firm"s assumption was that touching objects on a screen was a more intuitive way of interacting with a computer than using a mouse and a keyboard. But it ignored the numerous tricks and shortcuts users had acquired over the years—and grown accustomed to expect-while mousing around a computer screen and clicking on icons to make things happen.
The other mistake the company made was to imagine all platforms capable of running Windows 8. This sought to encourage sales by making it easier for people to move from one Windows appliance to another. All customers, whether for phone apps, video games or computer software, could then be serviced through the same Microsoft online store. To make this grand plan a reality, a touch-centric approach was deemed essential. Thus, the die was cast. Touch works fine with smart phones and tablets, which are grasped in one hand and poked with the other—mostly while the device is held flat. With the larger, vertical displays of laptops and desktop PCs, however, the touch-centric approach of Windows 8 proved a frustrating, arm-aching anathema.
A chastened Microsoft has gone out of its way to show it has learned its lesson. One way it has done so is to skip what was to be the next iteration of the OS, and leapfrog directly from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10—as if to signal a break with the recent past and to herald a fresh start.
As a final note, there will be no Windows 11 nor 12. Instead, critical updates, security patches and software additions will be made available to Windows 10 users, rather than being accumulated for some future "service pack" or whole new release. Hopefully, as venerable and useful a workhorse as long-lived Windows XP.