A while back Microsoft has delivered some facts about the new version of Windows, we want to sum some of these facts. Microsoft new version of Windows will put it focus on touch, just like Apple did with their new OSX codename “Lion”. They introducing a new interface, based on the tiles we had seen on the Windows Phone 7. This interface is mainly focused on tablet interfaces, but will be used and seen on all devices such as laptops, desktops and others systems.

This new approach is the biggest one since the introduction on Windows 95. I think this new step is a vital for the future we are heading, touch interfaces will be more and more used as main-stream input interfaces, and the “old” way windows works is just not good enough to handle this direction. My main concern is that it will be also introduced on desktop devices, where most of the input is delivered through a mouse and keyboard. I hope the user experience will be the same for them.

Silverlight Windows Phone 7 only?
The Aero-interface of Windows 7 will still be available in Windows 8, this for the sake of compatibility.  Microsoft wanted to make an OS that is the same for a range of devices. They wanted to run the same run-time to run on tablets, laptops, desktops etc…  With this in mind, they focused there cross-platform run-time to make use of HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. Which seems a bit strange because they always told us that Silverlight would be the new cross-platform run-time. In the Windows 8 ARM version the native support for Silverlight is removed, which seems a logical step since they now targeting Silverlight as the main development environment for Windows Phone 7. If they keep ditching support for Silverlight on the Windows 8 platform is not known, but for the sake of backwards compatibility I think they will bring back support for this run-time.

Hardware support
Specs on hardware are interesting for Windows 8. Microsoft  advises to use a screen-ratio of 16:9, this will probably not be restricted. Devices with a resolution lower than 1366×768 will not be able to run the new Windows 8 interface and will be presented with the older Windows 7 Aero-interface. Also they must the use for UEFI, a new BIOS version that supports faster boot times.

We can call this new approach revolutionary, and probably required to slay down the competition. We will know more once the Microsoft Build Event has taken place in September.