There is no denying Windows Vista was a total flop. So much so that Microsoft did everything to quickly move away and erase it from our memory.
One of the best connected Microsoft watchers, Paul Thurrot says
"Can we call Windows 8 the new Vista? Not so fast, analyst says." Call it what you want. That's what they call it inside of Microsoft.
— Paul Thurrott (@thurrott) January 17, 2014
Paul then follows up with
@sopanx @WinObs Right, me too. But that's unrelated to it being the new Vista. This is about sales and market acceptance.
— Paul Thurrott (@thurrott) January 17, 2014
Paul's comment simply aludes to the fact that Windows 8 has had horrible adoption rate (sales) and customers just hate it. Believe it or not, Vista had sold more copies in this phase of its life cycle (compared to Win8).
So what's next?
Most analysts believe the next version of windows codenamed threshold will be released spring 2015 (probably bundled with a new version of Office Touch). Microsoft will do everything to make sure consumers forget about Windows 8 so why waste your money on it?