It continued, “As a development lead you
will hire and manage a team of top-notch developers, be personally involved in
designed and coding features, and work closely with PM and Test counterpart
across multiple orgs to help realize the vision of building high-quality Excel
app for Windows Phone Blue.”
All of this will be positioned as a refresh
for the existing system. Indeed, it may well be that Windows 9 never arrives
and that we are instead given yearly updates to what we already have, although
we would think Microsoft would want to freshen things up with a brand new
release at some stage.
The accelerated schedule has been rumored
for a while, and it applies not just to the operating system. Microsoft doesn’t
want to be seen to be left behind any more. It was able to hang fire on
developments at one point, because it had the bulk of the market, but that’s
not the case now. It’s a lumbering giant that has been slow to make the first
move, so it wants to see product refreshes on a more regular basis.
The
Excel Mobile team will deliver a compelling new Windows Phone version of Excel
that is touch-optimized and targeted for the phone form factor
As well as updating Windows 8 and Windows
Phone, it will look to its services too. It will assess what is needed for
SkyDrive and Hotmail (now Outlook) and it will also seek to refresh Windows
Server. This wave of product refreshes could be rolled out at once, in a big
movement for people to look forward to and be overwhelmed by. Or they could be
launched within days or weeks of each other to keep up the chatter about
Microsoft. Either way, it’s this regular updating that really underpins what
Blue is all about.
What Blue doesn’t mean is that incremental,
much-needed fixes won’t come in the meantime. There will still be firmware
updates and little features added. Portico was a minor update for windows Phone
users and that has been sent out. However, it does point to a shifting sea
change in the way that Microsoft will work in the future.
Time was when Microsoft would hang fire for
a number of years and then come out all guns blazing with something new. I
could well be why Windows XP remains so popular – it’s still only four OS
versions old and it was launched 11 years ago. It that time, Apple has
effectively released nine operating systems based on OS X, with the latest
being Mountain Lion.
Bing
is also likely to figure big in Windows Blue
What Blue wants to do is get a mindset
going that development teams have to work towards a focal point. When these
teams work on a desktop, tablet or smartphone OS, when they make a change to
the various platform, they want them to ensure they can update every year with
something significant. It would most likely mean holding back on incomplete
features, but it would mean getting out there what has already been worked on
and perfected and get greater focus.
At the same time, this will make the
Windows Store far more prominent because this is where these downloads will be
made available. Therefore, we can expect major strides with the Calendar,
integrated apps, Internet Explorer Mail and Bing and we can also see tiny
tweaks to the performance of the system as a whole.
It’s crucial that with every step forward,
there’s no major cutting off of the old, so backwards compatibility will be at
the forefront of their minds too. Everything has to work, and users cannot feel
alienated and put off by an update, fearing it will mess up their systems. Why?
Because Windows is a working operating system; it’s not a hobby-lover’s toy.
People use and work with Windows every day. It’s depended on for business,
leisure and entertainment and is integral to millions of lives. It has to work,
it has to keep up and it has to do very well. If bitten, people will likely
walk to another OS or cease updating.
This
screenshot from Win8china seems to suggest IE11 will come with Blue
In some ways, we’ve already seen some
disillusionment with Windows when it comes to phones. You would think that the
Windows brand and the familiarity people have with it would make them want the
comfort of a Windows 8 Phone. But they don’t. they go elsewhere and they sample
different operating systems and learn that Microsoft Word isn’t perhaps as
vital as they imagined. Why? Has Microsoft annoyed them with niggles with
Windows? It’s something Microsoft wants to put right, we sense.
What does Microsoft say about all of this?
Nothing. It’s keeping very quiet about Windows Blue and it will not engage with
journalists about it. That’s likely to be symptomatic of the yearly schedules.
Time was when Microsoft would have a longer lead-in and would engage with
people on a wider basis, but it has to play some cards closer to its chest at
the moment, because it fears that rivals could steal ideas or begin to build similar
functions in rapid time.
The rumors appear to be coming from
well-placed sources, however, and there are tantalizing prospects afoot. A
single app store is being discussed. A single app store is being discussed.
This would put pressure on developers to produce apps that can work across the
broad from the desktop to tablet to smartphone, but it would make sense that
there is a uniform approach in some respect.
On the other hand, you could argue that
each of these devices suits a different audience and use and that they should
be bespoke to those different machines. It will be interesting to see how
developers take this and how enforced it would be, if indeed it is what
Microsoft is planning. We know that Windows Phone Blue is likely, so it looks
like this kind of strategy is not way off the mark.
Different
interfaces require a new way of doing things
What we do know and expect is that Windows
Blue will go beyond most service packs and, while not constituting a new
operating system, it’s anticipated to include a number of new features and
interface changes.
The job advertisement contained the most
telling information. It was the first time Windows Blue was confirmed, and it
suggested the UI was at the heart of things. It also went further, which tells
us that this really will be more than visual enhancements and some under-bonnet
tweaks. The phrase that says it will build on and improve Windows 8 shows that
this will be something that adds to Windows 8 rather than replaces it and that
it will be a process of enhancement over time.
This has to be applauded. Three years
between Windows 7 and Windows 8 was far too long. There were too few
enhancement during that time, and it means that people were almost begging for
8 to appear. In that time, other operating systems were improving and there was
a feeling that Microsoft had remained static in an era where enhancements are
made on a very regular basis and where even a yearly cycle may one day be too
long.
Microsoft, however, will be hoping that
this new version will turn enough heads to make it a stand-out decision.
Otherwise, and to force a deliberate pun, it execs are going to be feeling
rather blue for quite some time, and that’s something it cannot afford.
