Windows 8... why it matters to IT guys like me.

With an October Launch date just around the corner and because I needed something to talk about I thought the imminent next wave of Microsoft mayhem would make a good first blog post. Oh... and the fact that it will shape my future as an IT professional more significantly than any previous release of anything by anyone. 

The reason I am so melodramatic about this particular release is that for the first time I am actually nervous  about Microsoft's future all together if they fail in this latest foray, if they have got it right then it will mark a day in history that the unified OS became a reality.... but... Microsoft are putting ALOT of eggs into this basket, a new version of every single MS product is being released this year and what will follow no doubt is a massive marketing push into the phone, tablet, desktop and what-ever else market which could be a spectacular disaster given Apple and Google's knack for thwarting Microsoft's mojo using clever marketing or undermining their core products in some way.

Is it possible that the other two in their bickering forgot (or stopped caring) that ole' MS still has a firm grip on the enterprise market? While the others battle it out for consumer mobility share is the enterprise is the ace in the hole that Microsoft are going to bounce back with in the next wave? The scary thing for the others is that Microsoft aren't going to go down without a fight and this next wave is their haymaker (I'm not sure they have any other type of punch) it's slow and you know its coming but when it hits it's supposed to really hurt... its painful to watch at times but this wild swing is looking like it might just land right on the chin.

Here is my reasoning: We all know the transition to Apple in the consumer space in the last few years has been remarkable and in my view the basis for Apple's superior user experience was based in very nice aesthetics and making things simple for their customers: "Plug it in, turn in on and it works they way we want it to work for you... also it looks great too" Apple got that so right with the iPhone and the iPad seemed a natural extension once we got our heads around this new way... For those who didn't already know (Microsoft and their friends) we learnt that you should never underestimate the power of beauty and simplicity in designing user technology experiences and as a result Apple absolutely crushed them in consumer mobility which is a market MS had been floundering about in very unsuccessfully.. which I'm sure now is all they think about. 

The problem I see now for Apple is that those who have transitioned to almost all Apple gear at home still invariably have a PC floating around with some work stuff on it. Apple have never shown any interest in trying to capture the enterprise's attention because I believe to do so would put their devices under a new level of scrutiny and attack from the real hackers and other nefarious folk who are making a living penetrating enterprise systems. The overhead of securing their OS withstand this onslaught would probably be too much to worry about it in the short term when you have the consumer market wrapped up nicely and everyone believing your OS is somehow magically more secure rather than attacked less.

In fact every person I know that has transitioned to Apple (with the exception of Apple employees) tell me the same thing: "I have this great Apple setup at home but I still need to have my old PC to use my work software" or "They wont let me connect my iDevice to the work network" or "I just cant run this one piece of critical software on it" etc... the touted solution to this of course is that you just transition the lot to the cloud, get rid of your dinosaur IT dept who are stopping you using iPads and then you can access work data from everywhere and it's device independent and you can keep your beautiful Apple or Android.

The cloud transition is fine for SMBs but has been stalling for some time at any higher level because the cloud has a raft of legal/data ownership issues and questions that have not yet been thoroughly tested in court. Until the risk dept know exactly what the deal is you will for instance, never convince a bank or large enterprise that their customer data is more secure in an undisclosed location mixed up with a bunch of data from other cloud customers than in a private data centre where their own IT specialists have control. 

So this is where Microsoft step in with this next wave. A whole new set of product releases that will work across all types of device, that will be able to access secure business data under the control of your IT guys, that will run legacy apps, is "enterprise class", looks good, has apps and is easy to use at home or work... check out the Windows website for some Propeganda

If the final outcome meets these criteria then in my opinion, it would probably re-take a big chunk the market in one fell swoop, IT departments all over the world have been champing at the bit for an enterprise ready tablet/slate alternative that they can confidently recommend to their impatient iPad wielding executives.. in fact If I were MS I'd start by giving every board member of the top 1000+ companies globally a free Surface Tablet. I'd take the hit in revenue to stop the rot into enterprise iPad use (because once the board gets it, everyone does... and the board have iPads now)

Then as people realise its just easier to have all one type of device OS on everything the consumer market trickles back under the Microsoft wing, people leave the constrictive Apple regime for a place where there is more freedom to mess about if you want to but not so much that they need to be a tech geek to use it for everyday tasks which is really where Linux lives.

Microsoft are doing their best to mobilise their substantial partner network for this release and a lot of these guys are the same ones who have been writing iPhone apps on the side to try and crack an "Angry Birds" lotto win. If MS can give their developers a similarly simple and popular method to release apps to the OS and make some sweet cash too then look out Apple.

So its an exciting time to be an IT guy, we are only a month or two away from what could be the dawn of a new age or a period of completely re-training ourselves to fit the new "no IT dept" model... either way I cant wait to watch it unfold.