I don’t like change. I figured that I should start this out by getting the obvious out of the way. Windows 8 threatens the very fabric of my existence as a Windows fanboy. I’ve stuck with them through thick and thin. I even defended their choices in Vista. Everything they’re doing with Windows 8, however, just feels off.
Continuing the trend of making me feel uneasy, Microsoft has decided to update their classic logo to draw upon “the heritage of [their] brand values, fonts and colors.” What does that mean? Just take a look for yourself:
Compare the new logo to the old logo that we’ve grown accustomed to over the last 25 years:
Objectively speaking, the new logo does look nicer. It’s cleaner and finally associates Microsoft with Windows even if the squares are meant to represent the company’s entire product portfolio. It’s far better than the Windows 8 logo and its four monotone blue screens of death.
Subjectively speaking, the new logo signals the end of an era. I’ve been using Windows 8 for a while now and everything about it just feels wrong. I’m sure it’s fantastic on a tablet, but it just feels like Microsoft is abandoning the desktop market that they helped create. The new Microsoft logo just feels like further abandonment as they go chasing the far more lucrative, but ultimately unstable, tablet market.
Either way, the new logo is here to stay. Microsoft says that the new logo will start appearing at Microsoft stores across the country today and continuing into the rest of the month. It will be used to sign off all their new TV ads for Windows 8 and other Microsoft products. It will even appear on new Xbox 360 consoles from now on.
Once again, I don’t like change. A lot of Windows users would back me up as they’re still using Windows XP. It’s probably about time that we moved on, but at what expense? Microsoft can fling themselves into what they see as the future of computing, but do they have to sacrifice their still loyal and quite large desktop user base to do it?