We love it. And we keep loving it, especially if we're given lavish gifts – as 5,000 developers at Microsoft's Build conference discovered this morning as they gently stroked the sleek, black, powerful $1,100 Samsung Series 7 Slate each was given early on the day Windows 8 would be formally unveiled, using the need to demonstrate Windows 8's beta edition running on a tablet just like that one in your hands, which you can keep as a bribe; souvenir.
No one implies a new operating system creates new firmament on which the world can begin anew the way Microsoft does.
No one really pays that much attention to their operating system, if it's working correctly, in fact. They just move around, tell applications to launch and connect to networks and storage and each other.
Operating systems make that harder or easier, but they don't change the way we live our lives.
The biggest choice users make to enrich someone else.
They change the fortunes of computer companies, though.
They change a developer's mind so what turns out to be an important app runs on Windows instead of iOS or OS X or Android.
They attract companies and consumers to try a few copies or a whole department on the new operating system, then lead them to buy more of particular brands of hardware that ring and whistle best with the new operating system.
