Marco Arment:

The problem isn’t that they botched it although they did, in some ways. The problem is that Microsoft isn’t Apple, and Microsoft’s customers aren’t Apple’s customers. They tried selling a more Apple-like attitude to their customers, most of whom don’t want and won’t tolerate an Apple-like attitude. That’s why they’re not Apple customers.

I’d generally agree that Microsoft’s customers are more conservative than Apple’s. If you asked their enterprise customers in 2005 what they wanted they probably would have said “Exactly the same interface as XP, just add more features as menu options.”

But I think the real problem was their all-in-one mentality messed with their existing platform, something Apple avoided. If Metro had been introduced as a tablet interface separate from desktop Windows… well, I don’t know if it would have taken off but it would have allowed them to offer a desktop upgrade path that was more palatable to their customers. They didn’t make upgrading exciting, they made it scary and daunting without any real benefit other than touch which most people don’t care about on the desktop.