I agree that "non-techies" have no interest in new learning curves. They are already complaining about Windows 7 differences to XP and many are refusing to leave XP and when they find the magic "end of support" date arrives and XP still works, they will continue to use it until the H/W breaks. The same holds true for those who had to move to Windows 7.

If Windows 8 sales turn out to be weak in the "non-techies" market, other companies, besides Dell, will start to look more closely at a Linux distro that still resembles XP (or WIn. 7). ZorinOS is one that comes to mind as Ubuntu has created the same waves in the Linux world as Metro. Plus there seems to be an effort underway to bring back Gnome 2.