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Getting it right, finally

After trolling journalists for weeks, Microsoft stunned everyone last month by announcing that the next version of world’s most popular PC operating system will be called – wait for it – Windows 10.

Getting it right, finally

The operating system is likely to be ready by next year



Divyanshu Dutta Roy

After trolling journalists for weeks, Microsoft stunned everyone last month by announcing that the next version of world’s most popular PC operating system will be called – wait for it – Windows 10.

With the previous major iteration of the platform called Windows 8, it was the last name anybody anywhere had ever expected, especially after Microsoft itself went to the lengths of “accidentally” uploading a webpage that named it Windows TH and a wallpaper with a rectangle-composed 9.

“Do you guys need a minute?” Windows chief Terry Myerson said with a cheeky smile, before continuing with the demo.

But the rest of the presentation if anything showed just how humbled the company really was with the acerbic backlash to Windows 8 which had really fallen flat on its face trying to become an OS for the post-PC era.

Start menu returns

Singed by the negative reaction to Windows 8’s radical interface overhaul that saw the kind of pushback not seen since the days of Windows Vista, an alarmed Microsoft had apparently swung into action trying to think of ways to mitigate the damage.

Windows 8 had been designed for Microsoft’s ambitious ‘touch-first’ philosophy where the technology company, not wanting to be left behind in a rapidly changing world, evolved too fast to carve its flagship offering for a future that hadn’t yet come. The result came in the form of what critics described as a ‘schizophrenic’ operating system constantly battling between the traditional desktop environment and the Windows Phone-inspired ecosystem that literally ‘swung’ you into a different world with apps that opened with an annoying full-screen transition. Even the people, who took to Windows 8 warmly, were left baffled why apps tried to fly in with such a disturbing motion.

While not all was wrong with all that was Windows 8 – the speed, the reliability, the security and in general the evolutionary features seemed to have improved with the version – the much hyped ‘revolutionary’ aspects such as the two distinct environments, no Start Button, no Start Menu, the Windows app store, the toy-ish interface had not gone down well with the traditionalists. No matter how you cut it, it was apparent that the average Windows customer either a suit in a boardroom, a keyboard ninja in a basement or a timid mouse-wielding technology nincompoop were unimpressed by the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde that was now Windows.

With the nays getting louder, Microsoft tried to salvage the situation with a quick fix called Windows 8.1 but even though the Start button returned, the fate of the operating system had been sealed and the half-baked dish was sent back with a Gordon Ramsay-esque flogging.

Multitasking OS

Microsoft would have you believe that they started Windows 10 with a clean slate. They certainly would like so. However Windows 10, going by the direction its going, is generally what Windows 8 should have been all along – a platform for varying screen sizes that introduces a few radical touches in a much more manageable manner.

Coming off with surprising candidness, Microsoft execs publicly admitted where they went wrong with Windows 8. The schizophrenia was definitely going out, the Start Button and Menu were definitely coming back in.

“We don't want that duality,” Joe Belfiore, the VP of Microsoft’s OS group and the face of Windows 10 in presentations so far, said.

From the beginning Microsoft planned the operating system once more with the keyboard-and-mouse user at its forefront — the section that included the lucrative enterprise customers — people, who for Microsoft, brought home the bacon.

So while Windows 8’s Start screen Live Tiles will be built into the Start menu and the Marketplace will continue to exist, the new ‘Modern’ apps now will open in manageable windows and obscure ‘Charms’ menu will be replaced by a friendlier interface. Welcome, Windows 8.2 aka Windows 10.

The operating system will sport enhancements to multitasking, the brand new feature of having multiple desktops, and smarter search (they say that one every time) — features all geared towards helping people be more productive instead of wondering just what happened as a bright purple or green or orange window swooshed in blocking out everything else.

Evolutionary changes

Microsoft kicked off the Windows 10 announcement with a Technical Preview aimed squarely at developers, technology officers at big businesses and nerds so that they can once again start rallying around the idea of a Windows-powered digital world.

And while many of the changes in Windows 10 are evolutionary – things that the company tried to fix – parts of the vision are more daring. Windows 10, which was earlier called Windows Threshold, will be the most comprehensive release ever, supporting the widest array of devices from 4-inch phones to 80-inch TVs and everything in between.

Microsoft also has been letting interested users preview the version as it is being made and a copy of the evolving system is available for download on the company’s website. The Redmond giant has kept its promise of frequently updating the preview version with new ‘builds’ and the last one for this year was just released.

Going ahead, the company hopes to have the operating system ready by some time next year when PCs, phones, tablets, TVs and more devices will start with Windows 10.

Device stage

It was around seven years ago when Microsoft was demo-ing Windows 7 at an event that I first heard them throw the term ‘Touch-first’ (meaning keyboard-and-mouse came second). Back then, many people including me had groaned at the proposition that Windows was headed to where it went with Windows 8.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with trying to bridge the gap between devices and platforms but the Windows 8 way was just not it. Apple got it much more correctly with Mac OS X Yosemite that brought features like Continuity.

While Apple bundled the tablet and phone in one platform (iOS) and the PC in another (Mac OS X), Microsoft wanted PCs and tablets together (Windows) and phones separate (Windows Phone). Addressing a keyboard and touchscreen together of course meant a dumbed down user interface that was bluntly put – stupid.

What Apple got, and what Microsoft finally seems to be getting is that it is not about writing one piece of software that will rule them all — because they won’t. People will use different devices and they will use them differently. So it’s much less about axing the differences between the screens than it is to ease the transition between them to make one coherent, seamless experience. With Windows 10, that idea is back on track for the rest of us.

What’s in a name


For Windows 10, the natural name would have been Windows 9 since it’s the first major release after Windows 8 right? Wrong. Because with Microsoft, naming Windows has never been about making sense.

The names so far had been Windows 1, 2, 3, Windows 95, Windows NT 4, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and now this.

The official reason? There is none. Except, ‘Windows 10 is going to be so big it didn’t make sense to jump just one version number’. No kidding!

“We’re not building an incremental product,” — Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s Operating Systems Group.

Myerson said they considered the name “Windows One,” to match products like OneNote and OneDrive and its “One Microsoft” business strategy. But he noted the name was used up a long time ago, by one young Bill Gates.

“When you see the product in its fullness, I think you’ll agree it’s an appropriate name for the breadth of the product family that’s coming,” Myerson said.

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