Maybe you have seen the latest Alpha version release of Windows 8 (that is the internal designation who knows what the real name will be). To say it is a major overhaul is a major understatement. Gone is the familiar bottom banner, as the look and feel moves from desktop to big phone screen. Adapting to a growing marketplace that is embracing smart phones, Microsoft has at least in the first phase, gone in the deep end. Removing all aspects of the desktop known since Windows 95. So what does that mean for you and me?
In the short-term, it means that the way you are use to doing things is about to change big time. The layout and functions of the OS are changing to adapt more to the touch interface - abandoning the keyboard and mouse functionality. The OS now has an onscreen keyboard much like the iPad. Great for touch screen applications, but may not far as well in the large number of companies still clinging to the XP operating system.
Microsoft has not been without bad missteps in the past. Because of those, Apple and Linux have grown in the desktop and laptop OS market significantly during the past decade. The release of Vista, long heralded as the next great thing, was silently put to bed with Windows 7. Much like Windows Me, Microsoft seems to have disavowed any knowledge of Vista.
From the beginning, Microsoft has been the leader in OS for the general population. With WIndows 95, you had the first time everything came together in a graphic interface. Windows 98 was a vast improvement, mostly in the background, providing the first really business-centric software OS. Really made collaboration possible, passing data from program to program and computer to computer was far easier. Windows 2000, largely ignored by the general public was the first server OS, with its functionality which became the foundation of XP, you could now really connect between programs within the program itself - simple, clean and to the point. XP was the pinnacle, even with some quirks, it really provided all the parts of what an OS should be. Improving it was suppose to be the point, but Vista went off onto uncharted areas. The biggest was an effort to force people into buying new software because it wouldn't run older. Included was now 4 versions, there are four with Windows 7 as well.
That effort really lead to a complete bypass by most companies of Vista. The ones that tried it hated it, many returning to XP at great cost - i should know i helped several who wouldn't listen to the warnings. So Vista has come and gone, now 7 works with XP, in XP mode - you can put a program into this mode to make it compatible with older software. For the most part, functionality has stayed the same - mostly cosmetic and background changes. But with 8, everything changes.
If you are an Ipad user, you have learned to lost the mouse. And the keyboard, while kind of an issue, learned to live with the limitation, only because i have a trusty system to return to for what I need. So the question is, is this the end of the desktop computer as we know it? Maybe.
Preparation isn't a bad idea. What the limitations will be for this type of new software is intriguing. More than once, people have refused to embrace such change. Regardless, we are seeing the disappearance of the computer into other products - smartphones, televisions, etc. So changes are coming. Are you prepared? Is your company? Not difficult, keep up with the news. Try new technology, because whether you like it or not, things are REALLY changing.
