Windows 8: Microsoft’s riskiest bet

Without saying more, Microsoft’s CEO let slip that Windows 8 will be the company’s riskiest bet.

While Apple has unveiled a small part of their future Mac OS X 10.7 Operating System, alias Lion, Microsoft is happy enough celebrating the good sales of Windows 7 (more than 240 millions licences) which has just passed its first birthday since release, while they are still getting good media coverage.

When interviewed during the Gartner Symposium congress which took place in Orlando last week, Steve Ballmer issued a quick word about Microsoft’s next operating system. The next version of Windows, Windows 8, will be the riskiest bet made among the companies next products.

We could have thought that Microsoft’s CEO would have referred to Windows Phone 7, or even cloud computing which has been greatly pushed by the company as being its biggest challenge. But no, Windows 8 was named.


Speculation
Without going into detail, Steve Ballmer’s comment can be taken in a few different ways. Perhaps it is a risk in the sense that Windows 8 will try and differentiate itself from Mac OS X Lion, while there is also the competing Chrome OS which will start to appear on the market. We can add to this the risks of cloud computing, as we can easily imagine that with all of Microsoft’s talk on the subject, Windows 8 will be heavily integrated.

We know that for the moment there is very little solid information about Windows 8, with a lot or rumours currently circulating, while others are extrapolating on various Microsoft posts made within the group. There is talk of faster start up, with the machine being available almost instantly, a facial recognition system with functions inherited from Kinect, and more generally USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 3.0 support.

The most recent rumours relate to a Windows Store allowing users to obtain trusted applications on any Windows 8 device. Microsoft recognises the success of the App Store and seems to have taken inspiration from it. This success has led to Apple applying the same formula to Mac OS X with the Mac App Store. This will be integrated into Mac OS X Lion, with the portal to become available in the next three months to the compatible Mac OS X Snow Leopard. We can also imagine that Microsoft will take inspiration from their Windows Phone 7 hubs to offer a new but similar user interface within Windows 8, unless the phone doesn’t get the market penetration desired.

It should also be noted that rumours continue to circulate about a new WinFS file system, which was already mentioned with Windows Vista before being cancelled, in addition to 128-bit compatible core architecture. Could all this be what Microsoft deems to be a risky bet?

In any event, the release of Windows 8 isn’t for right away. Winrumors has translated a post made by a Dutch official on Microsoft’s official blog site. It confirms without great surprise that Windows is working on Windows 8 with arrival to the market planned for two years.