A major concept in the Wintel monopoly was that the desktop OS would be a platform. Until this year, that was strongly maintained (except for Vista, somewhat). “8” breaks the mould entirely. M$ has so limited “8” and placed so many restrictions on it that “8” will be a work in progress for years before it becomes a platform for IT generally. All the “partners” will have to provide free labour to Wintel to build the edifice…
Whether the slaves comply or revolt remains to be seen. There are enough examples today of OEMs and ISVs building efficiently on FLOSS to facilitate a revolt against M$, freeing the slaves.
Windows 8 is unlikely to benefit from enterprise market in short term.
A pile yes. Of sand? Well, that’s putting it nicely.