Scott Bush knew there'd be no hurry to roll out the latestversion of Windows when he saw people first trying to use it.

“My monitor is not a touch screen,” said the chief technologyofficer at credit union core processor Share One in Memphis, Tenn.“And, the initial interface of Windows 8 makes you want to dothat.”

The most obvious change in Windows 8 is its touch-optimizedscreen, based on the company's Metro design language, as thesoftware giant seeks to hold onto end users by competing withAndroid and iOS mobile operating systems and integrating usageacross devices.

That start screen, which displays programs and changing, updatedcontent on a grid of tiles, thrills some and confounds others.

“I like it personally,” said Ben Jordan, vice president oftechnology services at Synergent, a subsidiary of the Maine CreditUnion League and provider of core processing and other services. “Iuse it at home and find it very exciting and very different. Itscreams 'modern.'”

However, modern is likely not what matters most to the end usersat the 2,000 workstations that connect to the data center Synergentoperates as a Symitar service bureau for 61 credit unions.

Nor to the staff at the $73 million Northern Communities CreditUnion in Duluth, Minn., where its information technology managerand security officer, Nic Mathiowetz, is working with Windows 8behind the scenes but not on the front lines.

“Our staff has to be functional and be able to use the system,”Mathiowetz said. “The OS really is the face of the computer. Iwouldn't give them a green screen with DOS and tell them to type onit. It's the same thing with Windows 8.” It's going to take timefor such a transition to take place.”

“Our biggest number of users is tellers,” added Jordan atSynergent. “They care about speed. Windows 8 is just not as fast asWindows 7, which we are running inside our data center. There are alot of machines out there in credit unions that could run Windows8, but people actually using it are few and far between.”

Windows 8 adoption has been closely watched and sometimesjabbed, for instance by archrival Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, who at aJune conference touted the 51% adoption rate of Mac users on thenew OS X Maverick.

According to NetMarketShare data, as of May 2014, Windows 8 ranon about 14% of PCs running Windows. Windows operating systems arerun on 90% or so of all computers.

However, the change is going to come, some observers havepointed out, as machines preinstalled with Windows 8.1, which isthe 2014 upgrade, continue to flood the market.

While the user interface can be bypassed by using a classicWindows 7 screen option, many enterprise users are waiting forintegration of the new OS with existing hardware such as signaturepads and with payment channels including FedLine, ACH and cardprocessors.

That's the case at Northern Communities, where Mathiowetz iswaiting for his core processing CUSO, Share One, to make criticalconnections with the New Solutions platform it provides to morethan 100 credit unions.

“Officially, I know New Solutions doesn't support Windows 8yet,” he said, adding that a few of his machines are runningWindows 8 in the back shop for eventual training purposes. “We justconverted most of our computers off XP, after the April drop deaddate for security reasons, and now we're onto Windows 7 with thecomputers we just got as part of our four-year replacementcycle.”

Mathiowetz said that like many credit unions, he would prefernot to be on the bleeding edge, satisfied to wait while the bugsare worked out.

“In this type of industry, you've got to have support,”Mathiowetz said. “I just can't justify taking that kind of risk forno good reason.”

Bush at Share One replied, “Nic's dead on. We're playingcatch-up as well with the vendors that are on our support list.It's not the application layer that's the problem. It's usingeverything that's connected to it that's important.”

That includes security and functionality upgrades andintegration with the accompanying versions of Internet Explorer andWindows 2012 server software.

Unlike Vista, which rolled out to much publicity in 2007 andthen ultimately went away because of a lack of adoption andmuch-criticized performance compared with its XP predecessor,Mathiowetz expressed more confidence about the fate of Windows8.

“We do anticipate going to Windows 8,” he said. “We didn't moveto Windows 7 (rolled out in 2009) very quickly either. When you buynew machines, you can do downgrades on the system anyway, and Ireally don't like having multiple operating systems running.”

He added, “(Windows 8) is not Vista. It seems to be moreprogressive and stable. I can see over time where people are goingto get more acclimated to it.”

Jordan said there needs to be more evaluation of Windows8.1.

“Software vendors are, by and large, in the design phase offully leveraging it to provide new functions. Much remains to beseen before wholesale investment in it makes sense.”

That said, Mathiowetz added that in his shop, there are alreadyWindows 8 machines running, including on the optional standardclassic desktop view.

“I really don't like the Metro screen,” he said. “But that mightbe 11 years of IT talking.”