It’s been a long time since I’ve bothered to kick M*cr*$*ft. It’s become kind of a non-issue. In fact I was pretty impressed with the newest version of W******s that came with my laptop. (Never used it after the first few days, but it was jazzy, easy, and functional and it’s still on there as a dual-boot with Mandriva Linux.)

But boy, have you read the scathing reviews the upcoming Windows 8 is getting from its beta users?

If you want the gory details, here’s a 7,400-word analysis. And a shorter take.

Basically everybody is saying that no business or professional user will ever want to touch it. “Social” or casual users may find it fun — once they quit banging their heads on its hidden or missing features or its bizarre loss of familiar functionality (like the ability to have two apps open side-by-side).

Could M*cr*$*ft finally be about to make the error that will end its dominance of desktops and laptops — all for the sake of trying to compete with Apple on phones and tablets?