The new tech. hype term of the month , is without doubt mobile computing, but it does have more substance behind the term than most.
A large percentage of us now use Smart-phones and tablets daily, so where does that leave the old style operating systems like Windows, OSX and Linux. A question that Microsoft seems to be attempting to answer with Windows 8.
I think Microsoft has now agreed with Apple and Google, that the computing future for many of us , on a frequent basis, exists away from the systems and computers that we have used in the past.
The Windows 8 interface is far more of a competitor for Android and IOS, than it is for OSX and Ubuntu, so how will it work on the desktop?
I personally find I’m using more and more cloud applications and less OS specific ones, and a lot of what I do , I can do on any of them, given the right browsers and plugins, so the OS is becoming less and less important.
It will be interesting to see what people make of Windows 8 on the desktop, but I expect to see it far more on Tablets and phones, while people stick to Windows 7 until they no longer have a need for that “old” PC any more.
You can download a developer version here, and run it in as a virtual machine to see what you think.
Windows 8 Developer preview
Yes, I think that may well come. I also think with Microsoft changing tact with just being an Intel partner that we could well see a whole range of small ARM based devices appear. I mean, they have already got a Windows kernel running on the XBOX 360, what’s to stop them producing a RISC based PowerPC with Windows 8. They would be a fraction of the cost of current units.
The more I look at where Apple, Google , Linux and Microsoft are heading, there is no doubt in my mind, that the PC we use today is going to be very different in a few years time.
Nick