TAIPEI, Taiwan — It was another significant week in the mobile device world this week as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) gave the world it’s long awaited preview of Windows 8 at the All Things “D” conference in California and the Computex trade show in Taiwan.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant showed the upcoming OS, codenamed Windows 8, running on a variety of platforms including AMD and Intel Corp. notebooks and ARM-based tablets from Texas Instruments Inc., (TXN) Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) and Nvidia Corp. (NVDA). The latter was the big news of the show as it demonstrated significant progress since the original January announcement of Microsoft’s intention to port the next generation of Windows to both X86 and ARM platforms as the firm tries to finally crack the code on tablets to compete with Google Inc. (GOOG) and Apple Inc. (AAPL).
The new, touch-friendly operating system highlighted a number of rather innovative features including enhanced application multitasking, intuitive toggling between applications and functions, as well as a more social media-friendly layout.
The demos looked visually slick and were all running on real development code, according to Microsoft.
The hardware star of the show was Nvidia, which demonstrated its upcoming high-performance Kel-El Tegra 3 platform with notebook-class performance. Microsoft also assured the masses that additional hardware performance is not needed and that the specs of Win 8 will be largely identical to its predecessor.
Microsoft also used the Windows 8 preview as a chance to launch its upcoming BUILD developers conference in Seattle this September. The company touted the need for a new approach to enable a much closer and expanded collaboration with partners but offered little in specifics in an effort to drum up interest in the event.
While the hype cycle about Microsoft’s resurgence was in full effect, many critical questions still remain unanswered around the development program that had Taiwanese ODM/OEMs buzzing all week at Computex about being excluded. In addition, Microsoft did little to clarify any further details around release date or legacy application compatibility, instead telling people that all of their questions would be answered in September.
Either way, one thing is clear – the world’s largest software provider is moving away from its traditional Wintel powerbase and fully embracing the ARM ecosystem as it takes its boldest and probably last kick at the can in delivering a competitive tablet OS to take on Android and IOS.
