I'd be hesitant to predict this sort of result. Vista was very weird for those of us used to XP, and was widely panned in a similar way as a train wreck -- but people started buying, certainly. Ubuntu's Unity desktop environment was new and surprising, but it seems to be holding up.
Comfort is only one of the huge driving factors in these sorts of scenarios. That Microsoft has given up the mantle of comfort in the name of pushing forward is probably a good thing. Had they stuck with comfort, I'd still have to support the nightmare that was IE5. ^_^ Now you see big companies turning to Apple in the hopes of not only seeming more urban and modern to the people they're recruiting, but also to hopefully keep a very standard set of features and UI: it is quite possible, if admittedly a little crazy-sounding, to imagine that in ten years or so the post-Jobs Apple will reverse places with the post-Gates Microsoft.
Ultimately, if you change others, and others change you, that is a building-block for love in the most general sense. The things that we are fanatical about are the programming languages that really changed our lives, the operating systems that we put in the effort to understand and master, the technologies which altered our workflows and our day-to-day living. Love is always transformative, and Microsoft was getting too stagnant to be loved. Only time can tell whether their present changes will bring back some of that fanaticism which is sorely lacking.
Comfort is only one of the huge driving factors in these sorts of scenarios. That Microsoft has given up the mantle of comfort in the name of pushing forward is probably a good thing. Had they stuck with comfort, I'd still have to support the nightmare that was IE5. ^_^ Now you see big companies turning to Apple in the hopes of not only seeming more urban and modern to the people they're recruiting, but also to hopefully keep a very standard set of features and UI: it is quite possible, if admittedly a little crazy-sounding, to imagine that in ten years or so the post-Jobs Apple will reverse places with the post-Gates Microsoft.
Ultimately, if you change others, and others change you, that is a building-block for love in the most general sense. The things that we are fanatical about are the programming languages that really changed our lives, the operating systems that we put in the effort to understand and master, the technologies which altered our workflows and our day-to-day living. Love is always transformative, and Microsoft was getting too stagnant to be loved. Only time can tell whether their present changes will bring back some of that fanaticism which is sorely lacking.