
If your system doesn't have a touch screen, Microsoft hopes you will use your laptop touchpad to swipe through the Metro interface. The drivers for this are still being worked on, but it doesn't seem like an ideal interface to me. It also doesn't solve the problem for traditional desktop users who will still use a keyboard and mouse.
Obviously, Microsoft wants PC vendors to build as many touch-sensitive laptops and desktops as possible. In the desktop space, you can already see the trend; all-in-ones are among the fastest growing segments. But do we really want touch-sensitive laptops? I can see a market for a convertible laptop/tablet hybrids, but I don't want a touch screen on my laptop. The ergonomics are all off.
The Old Look at the Touch of a Button
The solution here is simple: give users one-button access to the existing Windows 7 desktop. Make Metro the default, but let users hit a button to get back to the interface Microsoft has spent the last 10 years training us to use. That way, Windows 8 could be presented as an upgrade that takes nothing away from existing Windows 7 users. Users would have an easy way to get back to an interface that was optimized for the keyboard and mouse.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like Microsoft is going to do that. The company is betting everything on Metro and seems to believe that users need to be forced into the new paradigm—whether they have a tablet, laptop, or traditional desktop. It doesn't want Windows 8 to be an incremental upgrade; it wants to push past the desktop interface altogether and create something that can span a smartphone, tablet, laptop, and even the TV via an Xbox 360. For that, it needs to be bold.
And Microsoft may be right. I can't imagine Apple would ever hedge and give users access to an older interface just to make them more comfortable. Apple forces its users to adopt new interfaces all the time and users love the company for it.
Then again, Apple still has very different interfaces for its touch-screen and non-touch-screen devices. And at the moment, it hasn't put a touch screen on any of its MacBooks or iMacs.