If the rumors are right, next week will be critical for Microsoft. Expectations are that Windows head Steven Sinofsky will demo the tablet UI for Windows 8 at next week’s AllThingsD conference. Experience tells me that the final decision to actually demo the UI probably won’t be made until that day, so who knows what will actually be shown.
The stakes could not be higher for Microsoft. If they don’t hit it out of the ballpark, I’m thinking it is game over for Microsoft in the tablet space; and, yes, I’m including the tablet pc in that broad brush stroke. Encroachment on the inking use case is already happening. Microsoft defined the tablet space back in the early 2000′s, let it languish, then the space got redefined and stolen from them when iPad 1 came out. With Apple now setting the standard, Android coming on strong with the Flyer and Honeycomb, and HP coming with all guns blazing this summer with webOS, Microsoft is under a full-fledged attack for both the consumer and business dollar with regards to tablets.
If Microsoft does indeed unveil the Windows 8 tablet UI next week, here is what I’m expecting / hoping Microsoft will show:
- the UI will carry forward much of the Windows Phone 7 touch experience. Gone will be the Start / Programs, traditional interface. This won’t just be an Origami skin running on top of Windows. It will be a whole different way to use Windows.
- Microsoft loves the “code once, deploy everywhere” mantra. Windows Phone 7 apps will run in Windows 8.
- Support for existing Windows applications is paramount to their success in the enterprise, so a full Windows experience will be accessible via some type of switching function to have the traditional Windows shell easily accessible.
- The primary demonstration will be around touch, but the inking interface is going to be retooled and probably shown. This is a huge difference-maker for Microsoft and they have a ton of money invested in it. It’d be great for a palette type of metaphor for inking and annotation to be present throughout the Tablet UI.
- Ink annotation on top of Amazon Kindle’s windows app.
- All of this running on an ARM architecture with battery life and instant-on being demonstrated. That will be the optimal tablet experience, but of course, it will also run on an x86 architecture.
- The emphasis will be on slates, but a hybrid solution could also be shown to appeal to the business user.
- Microsoft will prove that they do indeed know how to design and innovate
So, a totally retooled touch interface that gets the traditional Windows totally out of the way; differentiators being a Windows Phone 7 type of UI, Windows Phone 7 apps running within Windows 8 (huge market capitalization to encourage Windows Phone development), ink being touted (yet again) as another differentiator from their competitors, and full-functionality for existing Windows applications. The attraction for the enterprise IT manager: no sacrifice of existing infrastructure and software, an experience people will want to use at home and work, and no “which device do I bring” dilemma.
That’s what I expect Microsoft to show the world if they indeed have plans to show us. They need to give the world a reason to believe in them again. Let’s hope they exceed my expectations and totally blow us all away.
What do you hope / expect Microsoft to demonstrate?
I am assuming that Silverlight will emerge as the de-facto development platform for Windows tablet devices (as it is for Windows Phone) because in order to support a variety of processors, native code is just too complicated. I don’t really have a problem with them killing off WPF cause we’ve all seen it coming for miles. But they have to be decisive about it and stop all this wishy washy “if you need the rich blah blah use x, if you need the broad reach of blah blah use y”.
The bottom line is they need a clear, concise, and decisive development story if they expect developers to play along. Cause guys like me are sick of getting burned every 3 years when they throw it all out and start over. (WinForms, WPF, LINQ to SQL, basically every technology from Vista, etc.)
So that’s what I’m looking for. Cause the OS really doesn’t matter at all past the obvious battery life and weight factors. It’s the apps that matter.