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From the Editors: Preparing for Windows 8

By SD Times Editorial Board

October 15, 2011 — (Page 1 of 3)
Get ready: Windows 8 is coming. For enterprise software developers, the new Metro interface is likely to be a curiosity, but one which you’ll be facing soon enough. The impact that Windows 8 will have on you and your development team will depend on whether you’re writing desktop software for internal consumption or for outside clients/customers.

Let’s talk about internal software first. If your organization uses Windows desktop/notebook computers, it’s very likely to have a heterogeneous mix. Maybe there’s some Windows 7. Some Windows Vista. Some Windows XP (with die-hard employees refusing to give up their Pentium mini-towers). Perhaps even a few Windows 2000 instances, although that’s increasingly rare.

Unless you work for an organization that will move wholesale to Windows 8, your relationship to the Metro user interface and the new operating system will be best described by two words: “regression testing.” Stay on top of the Windows 8 hubbub, but certainly don’t expend any significant resources to learning the new APIs and coding models.

If your applications are used by external customers, it's a different story. For competitive reasons, customers will expect applications running on their shiny new Windows 8 touch-screen desktops and tablets to have the Metro user interface. It’s your job to meet those expectations.

Fortunately, on first blush it should be relatively easy to retrofit or wrapper existing Windows applications to play nicely with Metro. If you have a complex application, there does not seem to be a compelling benefit to re-architecting or rewriting your software to use WinRT. The exception would be applications that are very interactive and dependent on the user interface. In any case, it’s critical that applications be able to work with both touch-based Metro and traditional keyboard/mouse environments.

Finally, if you are building Web applications, be aware that Windows 8 will include two separate Internet Explorer experiences. Back to regression testing again: Customers will want to be able to use the Metro browser. Be sure that they don’t feel like second-class citizens.

Related Search Term(s): Metro, security, Windows 8

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