September 20, 2011

Metro and the Post-Windows PC

ZDNet has a good article suggesting that Windows 8's Metro stack is going to replace the win32 and .NET stacks of legacy PCs.

It sounds plausible to me. But what should worry everyone at M$ is that it's only the legacy applications which are keeping Microsoft in its dominant position in the enterprise. Metro may be a fine new UI / operating system stack, but without legacy support it's as precarious as WebOS or Meego. Or rather, the only difference between Metro and WebOS or Meego is the inherent conservatism of M$-loyalists in the IT department.

I presume M$ will try to handle legacy apps. with emulation. Which may work on very fast new machines, but I'll be interested to see if this works out on tablets and other low-power / long-battery devices.