Early Indications Suggest Windows 8 Heading Towards Success

User comments left by “normal” non-geek people on the Home Shopping Network (HSN) site indicate that Microsoft’s new Windows 8 might be more successful than the pundits predicted. HSN is a “community made up of people who are very different from the tech bloggers and gadget addicts that tend to hang around places like this” reports Ed Bott on ZDNet. In other words, regular, non-technical people who might find working the mouse to full advantage a challenge.

HSN is currently selling at least 26 different Windows 8 computers, with many models having had user feedback left for them. These comments turned out to be quite interesting in how they indicated a generally positive attitude to Windows 8 and the new tablets it runs on, as Bott found out.

He looked at 42 comments and broke them down into 5 key areas to get a feel for this non-technical community’s reaction to Windows 8 and the computers it runs on. Interestingly, 21% said that they liked the whole package, with 24% saying that they liked Windows 8. Jury still out on Windows 8 came in at 19% with those that hated the hardware at 21%. Finally, those that hated Windows 8 came in at only 14%.

So, overall, not a bad start for an operating system that’s gotten so much bad press over the removal of the Start button and the new Start interface! So, why is the opinion of these non-tech types so important? Because they outnumber the technically literate types many times over, hence unfortunately they carry a lot more weight with Microsoft than we do. Just look at how successful the iPad became despite it getting very lukewarm reviews when the first model was released in April 2010.