So it seems that Windows 8.1 will enable users to skip 'Metro' on startup. While I can believe that the current Metro experience (with no way to skip it on boot) would hurt Windows sales, I'm not sure that allowing users to skip it is really a good thing.
How many users will just skip Metro and never see how awesome it is on their touch based devices? Since pretty much all of us hate change, I have to think that it's going to be a fairly high number of users.
I think that a smarter strategy would be to boot to a traditional desktop environment on a traditional desktop computer. If you have no touch capabilities, you see the desktop we are all used to. If you have a device with touch, you get Metro.
I liked that Microsoft was all in, taking this half step back will only hurt the Metro UI.
via Bob Martens