<p>An operating system on a device is like the inside of your house. Everything sits in its place, helping things happen, predictably and consistently. But if someone were to sneak into your house and decide to surprise you with a full new décor, rearranging things in clever and modern styles, you would be disoriented and feel like you were in someone else’s house. In fact, if someone were to even move your toothbrush, you’d be vociferously annoyed.<br /><br />In a sense, Microsoft has moved the toothbrush with its entirely new take on Windows, which will reach the consumers across the world on October 26. Not many will have downloaded the Windows 8 preview, but there has been enough clamour and criticism to put them off, much of it too early and quite undeserved. In the past, Microsoft-bashing has been fashionable, but it’s no bigger and ‘badder’ than the other tech giants and it’s only trying to do what they are — get into where the action is, albeit late in the day. Some of the criticism derides Windows 8 as being two operating systems, one bolted on the other; a touch-screen system trying to work on a desktop, and even a “kind of catastrophe” if you were to listen to Valve CEO and ex-Microsoft employee Gabe Newell, who doesn’t quite explain why.<br /><br />The new Windows is like totally redoing your house, using some brand new furniture, and some that is old and familiar. It’s more than an upgrade from Windows 7: it’s a whole re-imagining, engineered to meet new needs emerging from the users of technology today in what Apple is fond of calling the “post-PC” era. Not to say that computers will disappear, but that they are no longer work-alone devices, but instead talk to other computers, smartphones and tablets. In such an everything-everywhere world, Microsoft cannot afford to stay the way it is, on the fringes of the mobile world. By now, it should undoubtedly have been a full-fledged player on the mobile landscape. Coming from a background of being on 92 per cent of the planet’s computers, Microsoft has been more PC-centric, although its activities have spanned a large number of areas, in some of which it has done amazing work (in research, gaming, its Office applications) and in some it has not (mobile, tablets, music). Now, it’s time for a step-change and it’s trying to do just that with Windows 8, Metro apps and working in the cloud.<br /><br />As I sit here with Windows 8 running on a laptop, a tablet and a phone, I know that it takes no expert to see that Microsoft is trying to unify an experience across devices. Much like Apple is trying to do, Microsoft is looking for a way to let users take up where they left off on one gadget without having to think about it. Both Apple and Microsoft (and Google for that matter) are integrating their OS’s into the cloud to make every kind of data available wherever users want it. It’s going to cost us, but that’s the price for using technology seamlessly and on the go.<br /><br />In getting to that goal, Apple has, at the moment, fewer challenges, thanks to its foresight and products that reshape industries. It defined the mobility space with its iconic iPad and iPhone. With its recent release of OS 10.8 or Mountain Lion for Macbooks, Apple is going at it from a different direction: from its other operating system for mobile devices, iOS 6, to the computer, which it is trying to make more touch-friendly.<br /><br />Microsoft is trying to go “Touch-First” on everything with Windows 8. In the process, it looks so different and is such a departure from any previous version that from the home interface, you wouldn’t even know it’s Windows. It’s like coming home to find your front door isn’t where it used to be. The familiar Start bar, which I distinctly remember got its share of ridicule long ago, including jibes about how you had to press Start to shut down, has gone, and in its place is a colourful screen full of live tiles. It takes a while to figure out what’s where and how to do the things one has been accustomed to for years. Even on a tablet, which is so fluid and futuristic with Windows 8, there are moments of frustration. On the desktop and laptops, there is no Touch-First because we have no touch screens. Well, barely any. Our mindsets are not touch oriented when we work on a computer while the OS asks you to explore and navigate in a way that suits a tablet.<br /><br />There’s more than enough time to become familiar with Windows 8, and the coming of the Surface tablet later this year will probably ease this process. Meanwhile, Windows 7 is to be supported for the next seven years or so and many users, both individual and corporate, haven’t even moved from XP yet. With Windows 8, it’s a matter of getting over the shock of a new look and getting used to a fresh take on a familiar OS.<br /><br />mala(at)pobox(dot)com, (at)malabhargava on Twitter<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: justify; ">(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 06-08-2012)</span> <br /><br /> </p>
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Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
