It also could get consumers into a very fractured environment as with Andriod. 

One of the great things about Windows XP was the long life and support that the OS got.  New features were added into and onto it, rather than the OS being replaced every few years. 

It also was great for corporations.  I integrate an OS into my environment, and the only thing I have to worry about managing over the long-term are application and system updates.  Not entirely new OSes that may have new hardware requirements.

For companies that routinely rotated hardware, a long OS cycle reduced the pain and allowed hardware rotation to be natural and top-down, which often makes sense.  However, when you're routinely updating the OS because of significant hardware requirement changes, it makes it a little more challenging.

The hurdle from XP to Vista is the reason why Vista was so unsuccessful in the enterprise.  However, in the few years that Vista was out, the hardware prices dropped enough that companies that normally upgraded their hardware naturally had already begun to transition in hardware compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7.  Making the transition to Windows 7 easier. 

That isn't even beginning to address the application issues, but Windows 7 also addressed them better with XP Mode and Virtualization.

but there is no indication to major OS change so far just pure updates just with a different naming system.... I'd compare it more to mac OS X cycles and updates than to Android IMO... I don't believe there will be any hardware change requirement until win 9 which is not in question with these updates....  if anything it should bring more coherence in the MS ecosystem

I think we and company will have less issues to jump in or extend their MS device park in the future thanks to it than the current state of things.... but we'll see

Consider if you will, a corporation where the not only do you have to make sure the commercial software you use every day works with every software update you use across the enterprise, but also every application you build in-house or have built for you.

Most would argue that Windows 8 wasn't a major change from Windows 7, but enterprise wise the OS was a major enchancement.  The reason why the guy who was incharge of the Windows group isn't there anymore is because in planning for Windows 8 he threw the baby out with the bathwater and forgot about enterprise users completely.  One of the things Windows 8.1 did was give back some of the usability features that enterprise customers needed.

I'm sure there are still a large percentage of enterprise customers that will hold-off of implementing Windows 8 simply because of the effort it'll take to upgrade their enterprise to the Start panel.  As someone who had to train enterprise users on how to do something they already do, simply because of a minor change to how they do it, when you're dealing with corporate users you have to retrain.  So, the more you can keep things the same as they were previously, the less time you waste on training and the better the investment in your upgrade.

You don't need major changes for it to be a disruption, especially to enterprise users.  You also need to look at Android or even Windows Phone 7 to see how user bases can be fractured.  People have a very usable device, but because the device isn't compatible with a future version of the OS those consumers are stuck unless they purchase a new device. 

How much support do S/E Xperia Play users get?  None.  How much support do Windows Phone 7 users get?  None, in fact they're losing capabilities. 

I'm not opposed to what is happening, I'm just concerned that I'll have to upgrade to Windows 8.2 in order to get it, but only to find out that my computer won't support it.  So, I can either keep on Windows 8.1 and live with limited support, or buy new hardware to get Windows 8.2.

I completely uunderstand what you are saying and while not an IT worker I had the job of assiting the IT department for issues in my own department forsuch things as deployement of new software and Q&A for my coworkers (nothing fancy though)

but here again we are not in the same sitution IMO than what you described... to me those upgrade are just a new denomination for SP... anything working for win8 will work on 8.1 8.2 etc util a major change occure in couple years... they just change the way of naming and doing things due to cycle and fact that they are dealing with more than just bug correction...

to be clear I completely agree with what you are saying I just don't believe the bolded part is of concern here IMO... on the contrary they'll add more compatibility coherence among different platforms... at least that's how I perceive the direction they want to take...

Fair enough.  Whether it happens with PC level OSes or not, remains to be seen.  The problem is it does happen in the mobile market and tablet market.