Why it's way too early to give up on Windows 8

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Microsoft is like the Little Engine That Could.

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This afternoon, Microsoft reports earnings for the first quarter (Q3 of its 2013 fiscal year), and the picture looks pretty bleak.

IDC just said that traditional PCs had the worst year-over-year decline since the firm started tracking the PC market in 1994, and Microsoft is reportedly considering backtracking on some key elements of Windows 8 -- or at least making it easier for users to ignore them.?

But a couple recent incidents reminded me that Windows 8 is still very, very young, with plenty of time for a turnaround.

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In particular, Microsoft has two deep pockets of support, and there's still a good chance that these pockets will eventually carry Windows 8 -- or a successor -- into homes and workplaces.?

First, developers.

Yesterday I had a good conversation with Matthew Carlson, the CEO of startup TouchMail, which demonstrated its email organizing app for tablets at the DEMO Mobile show. Carlson knows that he'll have to build an iOS app, and it's on the way, but he decided to debut with a Windows 8 app instead.?

Why?

First, the obvious reasons: he and his cofounder?have worked at Microsoft, and are very familiar with Microsoft's development languages and platforms. "It was easy to use to start prototyping the ideas and concepts and get something working quickly," said Carlson. In addition, they have been participating in Microsoft's BizSpark program for startups for the last five months, so they have a natural reason to be favorably disposed toward the company.

But from a pure product perspective, he said that the visual design of Windows 8 -- all those active tiles -- matched the company's concept of how to organize information. TouchMail?lets you group emails in certain categories, like by sender, and apply custom filters, like "only emails from business partners." The emails themselves are grouped in columns, with a little icon representing each sender:?

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Credit: TouchMail

TouchMail was inspired by the look and feel of Windows 8.

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Carlson also thinks that Windows 8 is just a "really good operating system," and pointed to features like the ability to run apps side-by-side -- something you don't get on the iPad or Android tablets yet.?

I realize that Carlson is not representative of the app developer community today, who tend to think iOS first and desktop last. But the point is that Microsoft does have a base of millions of developers who are already familiar with its platforms, it does have a well-established and well-funded program to engage startups, and Windows 8 does offer some unique design concepts that other tablet platforms don't have.?

Source: http://www.citeworld.com/tablets/21742/windows-8-too-early-to-give-up

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