Microsoft explain why they killed the Windows 8 Start button

In an interview with PC Pro, a senior Microsoft executive said that that the old Start menu had already fallen out of favour with users of Windows 7

“We’d seen the trend in Windows 7. When we evolved the taskbar we saw awesome adoption of pinning [applications] on the taskbar. We are seeing people pin like crazy. And so we saw the Start menu usage dramatically dropping, and that gave us an option. We’re saying ‘look, Start menu usage is dropping, what can we do about it? What can we do with the Start menu to revive it, to give it some new identity, give it some new power?'” said Chaitanya Sareen, principal program manager at Microsoft. “So I’m a desktop user, I pin the browser, Explorer, whatever my apps are. I don’t go the Start menu as often. If you’re going to the Start screen now, we’re going to unlock a whole new set of scenarios, or you can choose not to go there, stay in the desktop, and it’s still fast. You can’t beat the taskbar.”  He added.

He also said that people have started to use keyboard shortcuts instead of going to the start button for launching apps. He claimed that the Metro interface “really works well with the mouse and keyboard”, highlighting features such as the option to search for applications simply by starting to type its name on the Metro Start screen. Well, Do you agree with Microsoft’s explanation?]]>