Ballmer Sets Windows 8 Date
Speaking in Japan, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer referred to the next Windows client as Windows 8. That is a rather trivial detail -- after all, the way an OS works is far more important than what it's called.
The bigger deal is that Ballmer indicated that Win 8 will ship next year. It sounds like the x86/64 revs will come first and the versions for ARM to come later.
Intel also released a bit of news, arguing that Windows 8 on x86 will run legacy apps, while Windows 8 on ARM processors (an Intel competitor) will never be backward compatible. Instead, like an iPad, you'd need all new apps. Microsoft vehemently denies the Intel comments, but I can't see how an ARM version of Windows is going to run all the old stuff. And even if it doesn't, lots of you iPad folks run Windows apps through virtual client software, usually from Citrix. The same should be possible with ARM tablets.
I've mentioned I like (but don't love) Windows 7. It still exhibits the flaky behavior of all previous versions. I'd like to see all this fixed far more than gaining a few new features.What do you want from Win 8? Say it, don't spray it at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 05/25/2011 at 1:18 PM