On Windows Phone 8 and What It Means

So it's been a Microsoft week. This morning Microsoft held the keynote for their Windows Phone Summit and announced some new features for Windows Phone 8. If you have a browser that can handle Silverlight you can watch the keynote here, if you don't there's a .wmv file available here, and Twit.tv had great coverage here. The first two links are to Channel 9, a Microsoft-run community site.

The biggest news of the announcement was that Windows and Windows Phone would be running the same kernel starting with version 8. I'm not a software engineer and have little understanding of the internal mechanics of an operating system, but as I understand it if the OS were a building, the kernel would be the foundation, if it were a car it would be the frame. (Or maybe the engine, it's hard to say which of the two are more fundamental to a car. Without the engine you have a fancy wagon, without the frame you have an engine and some sheet metal. At least one still rolls.)

With both Windows and Windows Phone running on the same kernel, it becomes vastly easier for app developers to port their apps from the PC to the phone and vice versa. Aside from minor tweeks to optimize the software to the new hardware and change the control scheme there will be little for the developers to do. This means a truly unified app store for Windows; it means that universal apps don't just include tablet and phone versions but desktop versions as well.

This is where Apple is trying to get with it's ecosystem. They have been moving slowly by bringing innovations from the phone and tablet space back to the desktop. Windows went all in by creating an entirely new OS that will run on all of it's devices and create a unified, seamless ecosystem and user experience in a single update this fall. In short, they're trying to out-Apple Apple. Someone should count how many times Microsoft executives have said the words "it just works" this week?

It's interesting to note that while most of the world has been getting caught up in the Android vs. iPhone competition Microsoft has never wavered from what they saw as the real threat to their business. This lineup of Windows 8, Microsoft Surface and Windows 8 Phone has been in development for a long time. While we were wondering "when is Microsoft going to release Office for the iPad?" and "Microsoft hasn't been able to get it together in the last few years", Microsoft has been chipping away in their labs at a unified platform that could give Apple a run for it's money (all $100 billion).

We'll find out this fall if the strong integration that Windows is bringing is enough to gain a market share in the phone and tablet markets. We'll find out next summer if Apple's ready to respond. My prediction is that OS 11 will bring full integration to the tablet, phone and desktop operating systems, Apple will pretend that nothing similar has been done before, and we'll all be raving about how great it is. Cynical and hopeful at the same time, perhaps, but I can absolutely tell you that I will be upgrading to Polar Bear(I recommend the article, it has a humorous introduction) as soon as it's released for my Mac Mini, iPhone and iPad.