We tie OS ugrades to new hardware. After issuing a couple of hundred really nice ultrabooks with Windows 8, people were literally demanding old Dell 630's that had been upgraded to Windows 7 back.

I personally am starting to like Windows 8 -- but the experience is weird and took me about a month to get used to.

They should have held the release back until they had Office integrated with the Metro UI. That's a challenge to, because the multi-tasking, window-based desktop metaphor is kind of a key advantage of Windows that you lose with Metro.