Three Keys to Windows 8 Success

You can love it, you can hate it. There may even be some scenarios in which you might reasonably fear it. But you can’t deny that Windows 8 is Microsoft’s boldest; most adventuresome operating system release of all time.

The decision makers in Redmond have jettisoned the desktop legacy that has served them so well for more than 20 years, trading everything for a new tile-based, touch-centric interface borrowed from a smartphone platform that hardly anyone uses. This is not the strategy of a risk-averse company.

Microsoft could have player it conservatively, iterating Windows 7 instead of relegating the desktop to a cubby-hole in Windows 8. But while holding the line would have served Microsoft’s goals for the next few years, a conservative OS release wouldn’t have put the company in a strong strategic position for the long haul. The votesare in, and tech users want mobility and touch control. These elements are the future of personal computing in homes and officials, and the sooner Microsoft gets with the program, the better it positions itself for another 20 years of OS dominance.

Looking Ahead Windows 8

Personally, I’m looking forward to Windows 8. First, I think Microsoft’s tile-based touch interface is incredibly fun and easy to use. Second, I’m the perfect candidate for a tablet that can deliver serious productivity features. I need a single device that offers the best of my iPad and the best of my UItrabook in a thin, light, high-performance package. Will Microsoft be able to fulfill its end of the bargain? If the company is to do so, it will have to deliver the following.

• The new OS must be the anchor of a thriving. Windows-based ecosystem. I’m looking for a unified, feature-packed experience share among my desktop PC, tablet, and Windows phone. And I want all my devices to offer unique efficiencies for Office, Outlook, and SkyDrive. Give me multiple compelling reasons to live entirely beneath the Windows umbrella.
• The new desktop experience must quickly become the new normal. All if out little quibbles about how Windows 8 subjugates the desktop and isn’t optimized for mice and keyboards must rapidly face away into forgotten, prerelease chatter. The new Start screen must soon achieve the familiar and comfort of a second home – and the desktop itself must feel like a fully appointed office that we visit daily to get real work done.
• Windows 8 apps – weneed a lot of them. These are the touch-optimized apps that we’ll be buying in the new Windows Store and launching straight from the new OS’s Start screen. We won’t need the 650,000-odd apps that Apple makes available to iOS users, but we will need all of the big-name downloads- the hot – test social apps, casual games, and news/entertainment apps. As of this writing, the Windows Store’s inventory was just over 1,000, so it’s safe to say that Microsoft better goose its development strategy pronto.

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