It seems clear that Microsoft isn’t going to fix Windows 8 with Windows 8.1. The changes in 8.1 are trivial and do not address the major concerns about Windows 8.

Infoworld has a solution: a new design for the next version of Windows, code-named Windows Red. This is a serious re-thinking of the design choices made by Microsoft and an attempt to rectify Windows 8’s problems.

All of Infoworld’s changes make sense to me. It would be wonderful if Microsoft paid attention to this design and actually used some or all of it. But knowing Microsoft, they’ll ignore it completely.

Infoworld also posted a useful followup with additional details on Windows Red.