Is Microsoft’s Windows 8 Destined For Instant Success With Tablets?
Posted on 05. Jun, 2011 by Albert Madison in Tablets
This past week Microsoft gave the world its first glimpse at a new tablet optimized operating system they call Windows 8. The operating system was demoed on many devices including tablets, netbooks, notebooks and ARM powered devices.
With the first look at the new operating system Microsoft has shown they really do have something special coming to stave off the rise of Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, RIM’s Tablet OS, HP’s WebOS and any other challengers in the tablet space.
The question is though how long will it take for Windows 8 to take off? At this time the tablet space lead by Apple’s iOS platform which is followed mainly by Google’s Android OS, both leading platforms come from smartphone backgrounds. The Windows 8 competition is based around the idea of having an OS that can run on power conservative components, chiefly ARM processors.
Can Windows 8 run on ARM processors? Going by the short demonstrations given by Microsoft execs. the answer is yes. Although how well for long stretches of time is still unknown.
Will application shortage do Microsoft in at launch? At this time competing platforms are in a mad rush to catch up to the 60,000+ lead that Apple’s iOS based iPad tablets have in that department. According to Microsoft the large catalog of applications that Windows has now will need reworking to get ready for Windows 8, the Windows platform has millions of applications while all the other competing platforms put together barely get over 1 million (with the inclusion of compatible smartphone applications).
Microsoft plans on launching special development tools for developers so they can create what they call “tailored apps” for Windows 8. The applications will be different from the current crop of Windows applications in that they will automatically take over the entire screen when launched. Having applications that take over the full screen will help create a more immersive tablet computing experience, Microsoft believes.
The coding languages of choice include HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. Microsoft believes using those three coding languages will lighten the burden on tailored application developers, those three languages are some of the oldest in application development and most they are also the most widely known languages among developers.
Will developers jump at Windows 8? Heck yes, if Windows 8 tablets are like Windows desktops and laptops there will be something for everyone thus the market should grow exponentially seeing as most everyone’s needs can be catered to by at least one tablet. Developers care about having a wide audience and the Windows operating system is known for having the largest audience around, nearly all the computers on this planet run on Windows.
So how long should this all take? Honestly it’s hard to take a guess when Microsoft could rise to dominance with Windows 8. But it’s very clear that they will have a very good shot at doing so no matter if it takes them one, two or three if not more years. The amount of people who bought into the recent (2009) Windows 7 release total well beyond 100 million, I see no reason at this time why the same scale of success should not happen with Windows 8 given some time.
Below is a 32 minute video of the partner demo given by Microsoft for Windows 8 this past week at Computex 2011.
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6 Responses to “Is Microsoft’s Windows 8 Destined For Instant Success With Tablets?”
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acupuncture
05. Jun, 2011
Part of the issue Win8 need to overcome is footprint size. If it installs 16GB then that kills a very large portion of a SSD and that’s expensive. Secondly, will it get good battery life on tablets–just because it will run on ARM doesn’t mean the OS itself is energy efficient and not a resource pig.
If they can keep those issues in check then I’m sure software developers will port their apps over to Win8 just as they did for Win7.
PaulLuvsWindows
05. Jun, 2011
The world roars with the rising market share of Apple and Android in tablets. But this is nothing but natural since Microsoft is still re-aligning its resources into the emerging platform. Microsoft carries the huge global volume of legacy files and data that it needs to responsibly help to be ported alongside. Apple & Google don’t have such duty. They can nimble around as they please. But frankly, no other company has the magnitude and impact in world economic fibers than Microsoft. The giant is moving, slowly but surely. Wait for the dust to settle. Microsoft’s scale, software prowess, patience, and endurance will get us all into the Cloud. Hurray for Microsoft.
Chris Bordeman
05. Jun, 2011
HTML/ Javascript development is an absolute nightmare compared to C# (.Net/Silverlight/WPF), Java, or just about anything else. By abandoning .Net to HTML/JS Microsoft completely thrown most of it’s developers under the bus, leaving no good reason for us to stick around.
If Bill were still around, this would NEVER have happened. The last few years feels like after Jobs left Apple and their decade long decline started. Let’s hope he steps in and reminds these people it was DEVELOPERS that made Microsoft great!
spaul
06. Jun, 2011
Don’t be so foolish. He highlighted the HTML5/JS in the video to grab attention for web app developers etc. Why all the .NET developers take the “lack of mention” in a quick video as meaning they are dumping the dev platform befuddles me. Its so naive.
Have you ever thought that MS is just opening up the rains for who can develop for their OS? Instead of just .NET developers (which carry an obvious market share for enterprise software), MS is now embracing the web app world of developers as well. They want BOTH to develop for Win8.
This is the first introduction video, there will be more to come that show other avenues of Win8. People need to stop being so foolishly speculative.
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