Some people do keep their home computers longer than 6 years. To those people, I would say keep your current OS. 6 years is the absolute maximum time I would recommend keeping a business computer unless it is needed for some specialized function like running some SCADA equipment or it is used as a spare.
2. This particular thread is about certain hardware being fundamental to the upgrade to Windows 8. My point was that my three year old convertible tablet works better than now on Windows 8 than it did on Windows 7.
3. Medium to large IT departments do routinely purchase computers every one to three years in order to keep on top of technology by learning new things. That equipment usually stays in the IT Department for a year so we get familiar with it. Then it is redeployed - usually to a colleague that I would call an "early adopter". It is better to get them to evangelize for the product.
All that being said, my company has no plans to upgrade the users' desktops to Windows 8. We are mostly running XP and migrating to Windows 7. It would be too much of a GUI design shock to jump to Windows 8 for many of them to handle.
I remember people complaining about the round Office button when we upgraded to 2007! -even after the 60 seconds had passed that it took them to figure it out. Jeez, you would think it was the end of the world. Microsoft listened and returned the File tab with Office 2010 and the world was once again safe for democracy.
No, I will wait until more people are comfortable with Windows 8 at home before I deploy it at work. That scheme worked for Windows 7. Many home users had already moved on to Vista and Windows 7 so they knew how to use it.
