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HOME >> ZEICHICK'S TAKE

Zeichick’s Take: With Windows 8, Microsoft may have its mojo back

By Alan Zeichick

September 16, 2011 — (Page 1 of 2)
Something funny happened to me down at Microsoft’s Build conference, held this week in Anaheim. Something rare. Something unusual.

I wanted what I saw on the keynote stage, and I wanted it bad.

I’m talking about the new look-and-feel of Windows 8. The Metro user interface. The seamless transition that it encourages between devices in many different form factors: desktops, servers, tablets and phones. The user experience looks fresh and compelling, and frankly is the most innovative update that I’ve seen to a Microsoft desktop operating system since Windows 95.

As mentioned above, it’s rare for me to have that type of reaction. I didn’t have it upon seeing the first iPhone, for example. In fact, Apple has only done that to me twice, with the MacBook Air and the iPad. (Both of which I purchased promptly when they appeared in stores.)

In fact, I can only think of a few other times I had that reaction. Upon seeing the launch of a particular version of Mathematica (I forget which version). The launch of the Cobalt Cube, an innovative small-business server that Sun Microsystems acquired and killed. Steve Jobs demonstrating the second-generation NeXT pizza-box workstation. Not many others.

Downloading and installing the Windows Developer Preview, including tools, onto one of my lab machines is on my to-do list. (Microsoft gave every paid attendee at Build a Samsung tablet with the Win8 beta and tools preinstalled, but those were not offered to press attendees like yours truly.)

What about the developer angle? Microsoft appears to be making it easy to retrofit existing Windows applications to behave nicely within the new Metro user experience; in fact, the company claims that every app that runs under Windows 7 will run under Windows 8. (Presumably, that’s for Intel x32/x64 apps and not for ARM applications.) The Metro experience is driven by JavaScript with HTML, but can also be implemented using C#, C++ or Visual Basic using XAML. No rocket science there.

Related Search Term(s): Build, Microsoft, Windows 8

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