Very soon now we will see the official launch of Microsoft's Windows 8 product. Many observers like myself can see that this will be a significant milestone in computing and a critical juncture for Microsoft and also for Intel, both have a lot riding on this.
The new OS is an attempted balance between a tablet OS and a desktop OS. It has schizophrenic qualities however with neither being quite as pure as they should be. The real challenge for Microsoft is that their RT version, that runs on non Intel processors like the ARM will also not run traditional Windows programs. This means that there are really two versions of Windows, it is quite possible that people will buy a Windows tablet and it will not run the program that they wish to run.
This has happened before with Netbooks. People would buy a Linux Netbook because of the low price and then find it would not run the software they wanted. There was an extremely high proportion of these returned and I believe that many of the cheap Windows 8 devices will suffer the same fate as people buy it because it is windows only to find it cannot run their current software. This will help to thoroughly disenchant the buying public. This confusion will not happen in the corporate market because IT professionals understand the distinction and will specify the correct devices. In addition businesses are used to paying the right money for the right tool.
Windows 8 then attempts to graft an iPad style tablet into your everyday workhorse so that you can both carry out your day job and have a media consumption device. This though has problems, the first being the type of application that you run on a personal tablet is often the type of application businesses prefer you not to use e.g. facebook. The second is the availability of the Windows 8 Apps.
Windows 8 Apps are different from Windows 8 programs and will need to be developed. The challenge here is that this is a third ecosystem that developers would need to support. Despite the number of deployed Android devices being huge, probably bigger than the number of deployed Windows 8 devices will ever be, I still have to wait for Android versions of most applications. Inevitably an iPad version is released first, and exists for a considerable amount of time before the equivalent Android app, if an Android app ever arrives. I suspect that a Windows 8 version will naturally queue up behind the Android version, especially if you take into account the immaturity of the Windows 8 market place etc.
If Windows 8 does not find traction quickly it could fail, in a similar way to how Vista failed. The world is very different now though to when Vista was released and recovery from this would be much more difficult.
There are a lot of good things going on in Microsoft at the moment though and there are the signs of a really comprehensive overall solution. If the integration between the new OS, the cloud, the mobile and the entertainment console is combined just right this could be a significant change to our world. It is a tough one to pull off though and it requires a simplicity of use that Microsoft have not often demonstrated. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with bated breath...
