Much Ado About Windows 8

Photo: Joseph Lackow

We're back from a cool Southern California summer break, just in time to cap it off with the Microsoft Windows 8 BUILD conference, convening in Anaheim today and running all week.

This is Microsoft's answer to tablet computing, supports low power ARM CPUs as well as Intel Atom et al, and borrows heavily from the Metro approach used for the Windows Phone - which you will not be seeing in Anaheim this week.

The big news this morning is that the Windows 8 Developer Preview will be available for download tonight at 7PM PST.

The question is, will this finally get Microsoft anywhere and everywhere?  Well, if you have ever used a Windows computer, when you see this OS boot up in 8 seconds, I guarantee you will be intrigued.

We'll learn more in the Big Picture sessions this afternoon.  If you are interested in detail on the Session tracks, here it is.

Photo: Joseph Lackow

If you'd like to see the Keynote Stream via Silverlight, well here this is (let us know if you have trouble getting in).


But the entire tenor of the conference is geared at reassuring the Microsoft developer community that their well-honed skills will be heavily leveraged and meshed with, not replaced by, an HTML5 centric development model, i.e. web-centric development - hence, the "Use What You Know" theme.

So, while BUILD (which replaces the Microsft Professional Developer's Conference or PDC) might look a lot on the surface like an Apple conference - and there's a Windows Store - the similarities end there.

This is Microsoft write once plays anywhere - and not, rewrite for iPad and iPhone, because it's worth it.

And because there is more on heaven and earth than is thought of in your philosophy, Mr. Jobs.

Photo: Joseph Lackow

BTW the Samsung Tablet designed for Windows 8 is pretty cool, too.  And hardware may be what Windows 8 is really all about.

But, not tablet hardware.  It is touchscreens coming to notebooks -and desktops.  We've been using our 42 inch Samsung touchscreen on the desktop for some time now.  Stand-up computing on a touchscreen may end up being the most important thing Donald Rumsfeld ever did.