Bob at home is probably not upgrading his 5-year-old computer to Windows 8. Upgrades are something like 10% of all Windows PC's. It's common in the tech world to upgrade, but for most people, a PC is a PC and it comes with software for its lifetime.

Bob and his 5 year old dell are still running XP and that won't change. but chances are, Bob's next computer purchase will be an iPad, not another dell desktop. He should care about microsoft's salvo into the tablet wars because it means a viable alternative to purchasing an iPad.

ordinary users don't upgrade their OS. they get their OS upgrades by purchasing a new computer.

>Why should Bob at home with his five year old Dell care that this MS' salvo in the Tablet Wars? Why?

Maybe Bob should stay with Windows 7? Why should MS stop (what they think is) progress for people like Bob? Will anything ever get done with thinking like that?

Also, if you take a few mins to learn your way around, Windows 8 behaves substantially like a far better Windows 7 with a glorified start menu(remove all tiles you can and you're good to go).

And it will enable many devices like these that don't exist now:

Idea Pad Yoga: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz2R9y9ZvkA&hd=1

Samsung x86 Tablet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8-K1ELv6DE&hd=1

Try doing that with an iPad.(There are iPad-like ARM Windows 8 tablets too that won't run x86 apps but which will have Office).

83inch displays: http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/29/2833173/windows-8-82-inch-...

All these form factors tied in the with the vast Win32 ecosystem(except ARM tablets) and a single Touch-first Metro ecosystem.

It's interesting how the comments on Apple/iPad/Post-PC articles, financials of Apple/Dell/HP etc. state that "MS is dying in the Post-PC" era, but now when they come out with a solution to make a OS run on different form factors and to have tablets that are not just consumption devices, the comments on here are skewed towards "Why change something that works?". If PCs are really dying, why not attempt to fix that instead of standing by with their head in the sand(like RIMM)?

There will always be people unhappy with anything you build or change. They should just go with their vision of what they think is right and that's what they did. They envision that with Windows 8, most new monitors will be touch enabled because of the demand so that for some functions(like clicking on links), people can use touch.

You may disagree with the vision, but you can't disagree that there is a method behind the madness.

>Why should Bob at home with his five year old Dell care that this MS' salvo in the Tablet Wars? Why?

Because according to Apple and articles, blogs and comments I read here, in the Post-PC world we are now living in, Bob is replacing that Dell with an iPad.