Microsoft’s reputation is about to rocket sky high, or crash real low (editorial)

Windows 8. That’s the product most people are worried about, and it’s the product that decides the reputation of Microsoft. If Windows 8 is a failure, the company’s reputation will fall, just like it did with Vista. If it succeeds, then drinks all round.

While there is no telling on how Windows 8 will be received, we can speculate. From the amount of buzz Windows 8 has produced, it’s easy to pinpoint what people are thinking about the new operating system, and while many people love it, there is a large handful who don’t, and when you have a LARGE amount of people who don’t like a product, others will more or less not like it too, since liking it would be “uncool”.

Never compare Windows 8 to Windows Vista, if 8 fails it will be for an entirely different reason, but we can compare why so many people hated Windows Vista, and how the same could happen for Windows 8.

Windows Vista launched, and wasn’t very popular because OEM PC’s weren’t up for the job of running the OS, drivers were an issue and people found the OS to be slow on existing XP PC’s. While this was all true, the issues didn’t last long. If you were to use Windows Vista today, it would be just like Windows 7, without any of the exclusive Windows 7 features of course.

The hatred of Vista came from the large majority of users who had issues with the OS, unfortunately the hatred didn’t stop there, people who had never even used Vista also started hating because it was “cool” to hate on it. This was proven with the Microsoft Mojave experiment, which was a fake new operating system from Microsoft that was just Windows Vista with a different name. It was shown to a bunch of consumers, and they loved it. When they were told it was really Vista, they were shocked.

So, if there is a large majority of users who hate Windows 8, and then people who haven’t even tried the OS start hating, bad word is going to get around, which will make people not want to buy the product.

We can only hope that this does not happen with Windows 8, since Windows 8 is a fantastic upgrade from Windows 7, as it includes not only a great UI that DOES WORK with a Mouse and Keyboard, but a whole other bunch of improvements under the hood that makes this version of Windows the most secure… Ever.

On a more positive note, Windows 8 could just as easily become as successful as XP or 7. Just think, since the lovers and haters are practically split in half, it’s fifty-fifty either way. If Windows 8 is successful, it opens up not only a new opportunity for Microsoft, but it changes the industry in both tablets and computers.

Take a look at the above video we made back in August, it’s a simple video of Windows 8 apps in action. While the video was made using a touch screen, the actual machine the OS was installed on was a gaming rig. Ever since, I’ve been using Windows 8 on my gaming rig with a mouse and keyboard, and sometimes using the touch screen when leaning on my desk, flicking the screen up and down to scroll. It all comes natural when you have all three pieces of hardware at once.

I guess we’ll find out how well Windows 8 does when it launches in just under a month, along with Windows Phone 8 and the Microsoft Surface.