Windows 8: Third time’s the charm for Microsoft

When Microsoft introduced Windows for the Pocket PC twelve years ago it was intent on leveraging its unmatched arsenal of applications into a dominant position in hand-held computing. For many years it did, if only because there were few alternatives, and Windows CE and later Windows Mobile integrated well with users’ desktop applications and data. With the introduction of the iPhone, and later Android, that all changed.

Suddenly no one wanted a tiny, stripped-down, version of Windows in the palm of their hand — especially if it meant using a stylus. The sheer fun and new-found productivity of using a touch-oriented operating system drew both users and developers in droves. For developers, the convenience of being able to use a Compact version of the .NET framework was overwhelmed by the skyrocketing demand for applications on the new platforms. Even those of us who were die-hard Windows Mobile users for years had begun to leave the platform long before Microsoft officially put it out of its growing misery.

Eventually seeing the writing on the wall, Microsoft changed course completely. Abandoning the users and developers it had accumulated — and had been loyal to its platform — it tried to out-Apple Apple with Windows Phone 7. Designed from the ground up to have a colorful, almost playful interface tightly integrated with popular smartphone functions and social media, WP7 owed nothing to Windows or legacy Windows applications. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it also gained nothing from the power of the Windows installed base. Critically, WP7 was a success, and got some market traction among new phone users and those enthralled by its engaging interface. Commercially, though, WP7 has only been a blip on the radar — projected by IDC to account for just 5% of the mobile market in 2012.

One reason for the slow adoption of Windows Phone 7 has clearly been its relative lack of great applications. While in sheer numbers there are now 100,000 WP7 apps (still an order of magnitude less than those available for either iOS or Android) more critical has been the lack of must-have and high-profile applications that drive buyers to chose a phone OS. Ironically, the same clean-break strategy that allowed WP7 to have a refreshing, new, popular interface, also cost it any traction with existing Windows developers.

Once the iPad started to take off at a nearly unbelievable rate, it wasn’t hard for the folks in Redmond to see the writing on the wall. If Microsoft couldn’t get traction in mobile, and mobile was the future, Microsoft’s cash-creating juggernaut would have some heavyweight sand in its gears. It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention, and in this case it appears to hold true. The only way out for Microsoft became the fairly daring strategy of retooling all of Windows — combining the modernistic and touch-centric Metro approach of Windows Phone 7 with the core technology base familiar to developers as Windows into what we now know as Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.

On paper, and on stage as the charismatic Joe Belfiore extolls its virtues, the strategy is a clear winner. Microsoft has synthesized the best of both worlds — massive installed base momentum and futuristic features and functions — into a single, compelling platform for the future. To accomplish this, Microsoft is betting on new, high-performance hardware — which is why existing phones, even those being sold today with Windows Phone 7.5, won’t be able to run Windows Phone 8. Like its previous mobile efforts, this one is a gamble, but a larger and more critical one than ever before. Mobile is now where the action and the money are, so Microsoft really needs to deliver on the vision it outlined this week to stay the world’s dominant software company.