14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 8 is Microsoft’s latest bet on the operating system market and, although the product comes with many features deemed as confusing, the company keeps praising it with every single occasion.
Speaking at the Microsoft Executive Briefing in London, CEO Steve Ballmer told everyone that consumers wouldn’t lose anything if they decided to make the move from Windows 7 to Windows 8, as the new OS iteration was built on the same platform as its predecessor.
This means that Windows 8 comes with all the features available in Windows 7, but it also brings its very own goodies to better address consumers’ needs.
Ballmer has also emphasized that Microsoft is no longer just a simple software firm, as the Redmond-based tech titan is slowly migrating towards a devices and services approach that would allow it to tackle a wider array of industry sectors.
“We’re not only reimagining our flagship product, Windows, but also how we go to market. Although our core skill is software, we’re becoming a devices and software company,” he said according to Tim Cozze-Young, audience marketing manager, Microsoft UK Enterprise Team.
“We don’t want there to be any seam, hardware or software, across which we’re not innovating. We’re in the most competitive time in our lives since the early 90s.”
Microsoft has already made the first step towards this new approach with the release of the Surface RT tablet and several devices wearing its badge are also expected to see daylight next year. A mini-Surface tablet featuring a 7-inch display and specifically developed for gaming purposes is likely to be launched in 2013, while a Surface smartphone could also join an extended “Surface” product family.
Last but not least, the Surface Pro, Microsoft’s very own tablet that’ll run Windows 8 Pro and legacy Windows app, is expected to be released in early 2013.