Tom Spring is an IT writer and columnist who in a recent post on PCworld.com said too many IT writers and pundits have been predicting gloom and doom for Microsoft each time the company would launch a new version of Windows.

Today’s bashing of Windows 8 by these supposedly impartial purveyors of IT news and ideas may seem like novel or even radical. The truth, however, is these doomsday forecasts have been made with regularity and predictability.

Let us go back, for example, to August 24, 1995, when Microsoft launched Windows 95. That version of Microsoft’s operating system was supposed to signal the software company’s eventual demise, so preached the company’s legions of critics.

Windows 95, however, turned out to be one of Microsoft’s bestsellers ever.

Three years later, days after Microsoft launched the next version of its flagship OS, the Windows 98, the US government also launched its antitrust attack against the software company. For a very long while, technology and mainstream media’s headlines carried the “US government vs. Windows” banner.

The tech industry’s self-proclaimed experts and gurus were almost unanimous in proclaiming Microsoft wasn’t likely to survive.

The company, however, survived. And Windows 98 sold millions of copies.

Another three years later, and barely a month after the 9/11 terror attacks, the Redmond company launched Windows XP. Every other IT writer said they were commiserating with the software company for the “bad timing” of the software launch.

Windows XP has become Microsoft’s bestselling and most loved (and just as equally hated) OS ever. A testament to its staying power, almost half of the world’s Windows users are today still running an XP computer.

Vista Will Kill Microsoft

IT writers and tech market observers have called Windows Vista one of the tech industry’s all-time flops. The OS, which succeeded Windows XP, was uniformly disparaged by both critics and users that many of the market’s so-called experts predicted Windows users would abandon the platform en masse.

Again, things did not turn out the way the prognostics said they would.

As of January 2009, Vista had a user base of about 330 million, according to Internet-usage market share data and World Internet Users and Population Statistics. Yes, indeed, Vista was a big flop.

Yet, the myth of a Vista failure persists to this day.

Windows 8 Hate

These days, it’s Windows 8’s turn at the gallows.

A simple Google search of “Windows 8” returns a list of media stories and opinions, a significant portion of which can be classified as “putting down,” if not totally antagonistic, to the new OS.

One IT writer said he hated Windows 8 for its new interface. He bashed the software because its vendor removed the desktop interface and replaced it with the Metro interface.

Another said the release of Windows 8 is a “non-event for most companies — and some experts say many may never adopt it.” This one even claimed that many businesses say “there is no compelling reason to adopt.”

Toddler Digs Windows 8

 One Windows user, however, would not take these anti-Windows 8 attacks sitting down. Adam Desrosiers posted a video of his 3-year-old son using Microsoft’s latest OS with ease. Desrosier, in describing the video, said “I read these tech pundits and journalists discussing how hard it’s gonna be for the general public to learn the new UI of Windows 8. Nonsense.”

Of course, Windows 8 might become Microsoft’s biggest failure ever. Then again, it could become just another version of Windows, and sell hundreds of millions of copies.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.