LinuxGram

It’s maybe a year before any Windows 8 products come out but Microsoft started pushing what it called its “re-imagined,” next-generation operating system to developers this week at its Build conference in California.

Evidently it’s trying to freeze the market before its PC empire is utterly chipped away by the upstart Apple and Android.

Microsoft is supposed to be “re-imagining” all its widgetry “from the chipset to the user experience” to run on or through the cloud, an exercise that’s supposed to equate to re-imagining Microsoft itself while Windows remains at its core and every business is cloud-optimized and tied together.

Backward-compatible with Windows 7, on which it is based but requiring less memory, Windows 8 is both a leap into OS-disenfranchising cloud services and a tablet catch-up – at least for ARM tablets. It made no firm promises about Intel tablets but reassured the crowd that the highly rated ARM development is keeping pace with its Intel development although Microsoft didn’t show it.

Windows 8 is supposed to bring a fully fledged multi-tasking operating system to the tablet along with a battery that can last all day.

One enamored blogger tweeted, “Hello, Windows? This is iPad. You Win.”

It’s also supposed to run on x86 desktop and laptop PCs and there’s a high-end-scaling Windows 8 Server in the offing. Unlike Apple it’s all the same stuff.

Windows 8 introduces a new smartphone-like, icon-ditching, tile-based “Metro-style” interface (see below) built for touch, finger-swiping and pinching that can also respond to a mouse and a keyboard (but still supports voice and a stylus).

Behind the tiles are live feeds of, say, photos, e-mails and news.

There’s “touch browsing” too complements of Internet Explorer 10 (two version, a Flash-free one for Metro, one for desktops).

Seeking feedback, Microsoft wants ISVs to build full-screen apps to the new interface that lack the usual menus but has yet to confirm there will be a Metro-style Office. It’s possible the old familiar Windows desktop will run Office and other traditional programs but that would mean Office doesn’t run on ARM and that would mean trouble. Older apps may have to be tweaked or rewritten to run on ARM.

Microsoft handed out 5,000 free development-only Intel i5-based Samsung tablets running Windows 8 at Build and said 500,000 copies of the pre-beta Developer Preview of Win8 were downloaded the first day it was available online. Once loaded on a tablet, it’s supposed to offer instant-on; PCs may take a few seconds.

There are three iterations of Windows 8: a 32-bit OS, a 64-bit OS and the 64-bit OS with developer tools. The 64-bit client OS includes Hyper-V.

Programmers can use HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, C#, Visual Basic, .NET, Silverlight, XAML and C++ to build Windows 8 apps. Other languages are reportedly coming although the preference for Metro apps is HTML5 and JavaScript.

Rumor has it Microsoft could have a one-and-only beta ready in time for the Consumer Electronics Show in January, followed by a single Release Candidate and then RTM the stuff.

According to CEO Steve Ballmer, 500 million PCs should be ripe for Win8 upgrades next year. Windows users however are still in the midst of upgrading to Windows 7, which has sold nearly 450 million copies, though sales have been down the last three quarters.

There will of course be an integrated online Windows App store where developers can sell their wares either through direct downloads or through the developers’ own sites.

Windows 8 data will be synced across devices and with Microsoft’s Skydrive.

Apple is expected to respond.

See http://dev.windows.com for downloads.

Microsoft confirmed Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show that it is moving Windows full tilt to the memory-restricted, Linux-doting ARM chip, provoking somebody to crack that the Wintel marriage has become an open relationship.

Bloomberg and then the Wall Street Journal reported as much right before Christmas. They indicated that they had heard from unnamed sources that the Windows widgetry was a specially tailored but full-featured modular version of the famed resource-hogging operating system.

Microsoft said it’s working with ARM merchants Texas Instruments, Nvidia, Qualcomm as well as ARM itself. Microsoft and ARM cut an expanded licensing deal this past summer.

Microsoft indicated the widgetry would involve the native ARM kernel; native drivers and applications; hardware-accelerated HTML5 and graphics. Apparently Office can run natively on ARM.

The operating system will also run on Intel and AMD x86 System on a Chip (SoC) architectures (which promise to produce a motherboard the size of a Saltine).

It will take Microsoft anywhere from 24-36 months to put such a thing out although it has reportedly been working on the AMD port for a while, long enough to have a primitive UI-lacking demo.

Our own sources called the OS Windows 8, due in 2012. Microsoft wouldn’t call it Windows 8 during a press conference Wednesday afternoon. It only identified it as the “next generation of Windows” or “the next version of Windows,” suggesting there could be a name change.

The All Things Digital blog pointed out that hardware makers will have to create ARM-compatible drivers, which takes time. Microsoft downplayed the drive effort.

However, the port actually involves not just the OS but the middleware, firmware and applications and to complicate matters each ARM chip is incompatible with the others while Microsoft is reportedly targeting mainstream consumer software, which makes the whole exercise literally 100 times harder, our own sources say.

They remember that Microsoft rarely makes a schedule but say the plan is to have a beta in late 2011 and a product in 2013.

The development, which speculators figure will cost $100 million, is completely unsurprising. Microsoft wants in on the battery-powered smartphone and tablet phenomena where the ARM chip is now dominant and Apple and Android hold sway. But all kinds of devices are going online. Everything from sewing machines to cars, refrigerators and TVs are starting to connect to the Internet.

The Motley Fool pointed out last month that the new Windows Phone 7 runs on Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor, which uses the ARM architecture, and that a version of Windows Embedded Compact runs on ARM but ARM can’t support multi-tasking or hardware virtualization.

Microsoft, which pioneered the tablet although you’d never know it from Apple’s runaway success, has moved to non-x86 chips before but they didn’t have staying power.

ARM’s success suggests the vaunted Wintel PC duopoly could be at an end, already chipped away by Intel’s support of Linux. ARM eventually means to challenge Intel’s lock on the server business, offering a lower-power solution for cloud and data centers. All Things Digital said the development could impact notebooks and netbooks as much as slates.

Although Microsoft wasn’t at all clear, Bloomberg figured Wintel apps will have to be ported and poorly ported one will run “extremely slowly.” ARM, however, is a natural for cloud-based apps.

Of course Intel and AMD are rushing to make low-power versions of their x86 chips that’ll squeeze into handhelds.

Apple, which developed a small version of its Mac OS for its ARM handhelds, sold a reported 7.46 million iPads from April until the end of September, making it dominant in tablets; and 50 million tablets are supposed to sell in 2011.

Microsoft said before Christmas that 1.5 million Windows Phone 7-bearing cell phones moved in the first six weeks of launch, but only into distribution channel according to Reuters.

Bentley Radcliff, who used to work in marketing at Apple and Sun – no Microsoft fanboy he but curious about Redmond’s approach to the cloud – wanted to go to its Worldwide Partner Conference this week so we handed him a reporter’s notebook and sent him on his way. Miracle of miracle he returned impressed. This is what he had to say.

Sunday was the end of the World Cup so Microsoft decided to play off the theme with videos of fans in the pubs singing OLAY, OLAY, OLAY but instead sang O Cloud, O Cloud, O Cloud, not exactly your bonding IBM theme song.

Just to be clear this is a partner conference full of people who buy Microsoft products and resell them in their markets. And the cloud SCARES THE CRAP OUT OF THEM.

What came across loud and clear is that Microsoft is not going to miss this round of IT transformation.

Steve Ballmer gave the keynote and reiterated the key dimensions of the cloud, something that he spoke about back in March but for most of the partners this was brand new.

Later I found out from a group of Microsoft executives that Microsoft has mandated that 90% of its products be cloud-focused by the end of the year. They felt that they had reached 70% by the conference, a lot of it focusing on Azure and pushing key products to be SaaS.

The key dimensions of the cloud according to Ballmer are:

1. Creates opportunities and new responsibilities.
2. Cloud learns and helps you to learn, decide and take action
3. Cloud enhances social and professional interactions
4. Cloud is going to drive server advances that run on the cloud
5. Cloud wants smarter Devices – which was a big play for fat clients!!!

What’s important about this is that Microsoft is defining what the cloud will be for many of its customers. And it’s doing everything it can to bring the partner community along with them. If you look at the competition, Amazon, Rackspace, Google there’s no room for the partner. This is what scares them. Microsoft is giving partners a chance to jump on board.

The big announcement was the Azure appliance, which is a preconfigured Azure platform to be installed at a client’s physical site alleviating the concern for security and data proximity. There was not a lot of information and I got the distinct impression the thing was only baked over the last week or two but a number big vendors committed to building or using Azure appliance namely HP, Fujitsu, Dell, and – surprise – eBay.

The Azure appliance lets Microsoft extend its cloud solutions to its partners. And by announcing that some larger partners would open Azure-hosted data centers they fulfilled the vision. This is where Microsoft has made an amazing move on the cloud chessboard, at least Check!

They are going to give partners of all sizes and levels a way to host, collocate with a hosting company or buy from Microsoft cloud services for their clients. With the installed base of Microsoft products this could rapidly propel them to the front of the cloud line especially in the SMB areas where partners play.

Still the mood was skeptical because the cloud changes the game on the partner. Where they used to compete only at a local level against other VARs or VADs now they have to compete on a national, even international level with every cloud provider. Welcome to the brave new world. Either get on board or become the next BlockBuster video stunned by Netflix!

Of course there were plenty of the traditional upgrade announcements the most important being Windows 7 and Windows Server. During the discussion a new message about Windows caught my ear – “Make the Windows experience a vital and LOVED part of users’ lives!” Something Vista didn’t do!! According to Microsoft 1.1 billion PCs run Windows and 70% still run XP at work but at home they run Windows 7 (of course they didn’t mention Mac). The user experience at home is superior to the user experience at work. So Windows 7 upgrades for 2010-2011 is a high priority.

During a demo session Microsoft showed different flavors of laptops, desktops and of course had an iPad-like device they called a slate. Not sure why this got so much attention in the press other than the clear message that there will be full-blown slates (Pads) that run Windows 7, phones that run Windows 7 Mobile, and that life will be great with Windows on a Pad. There was nothing too shocking as there was very little to talk about.

As far as ISVs, a lot of them are coming on board with the Azure and cloud strategy. Some of course are waiting to see what happens and the ones that have to provide secure access and on-site premise solutions are moving slowly. But according to Microsoft 10k customers are using the Azure platform. And for something that’s only been shipping this year that’s an impressive number.

On the show floor after the keynotes, I talked with a number of hosted Azure providers from all niches. They mostly support the cloud direction and the Azure program. Of course Microsoft gave them the software free to run and opened a marketplace for applications so why not jump on board. I had an interesting conversation with New World App’s about its niche play in the government with managed security and disaster recovery. It’s extending its partnership with Microsoft by offering Azure for government applications.

It appears that Microsoft buttering up ISVs and resellers by pledging Business Investment Funds (BIFs) – development dollars – to get them to come over. This is the key – apps bring volume and volume brings apps. So a jumpstart is a great model.

Microsoft intends to take some of the billions it’s got in the bank and become a leader if not the leader in the cloud. Everyone’s jumping on the cloud but they’ve jumped out in front. Well done.

Microsoft and Amazon have signed a broad patent cross-license that Microsoft said covers Amazon’s e-book reader “Kindle, which employs both open source and Amazon’s proprietary software components, and Amazon’s use of Linux-based servers.”

Facts being thin on the ground one is left to speculate that that means all of Amazon’s Linux-based servers everywhere including all those Linux images on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The terms of the deal are secret of course, but Microsoft made sure to say that Amazon’s paying it “an undisclosed amount of money.”

The fact that Amazon appears to concede the legitimacy of Microsoft’s claims that Linux and other open source widgetry violate its patents is going to drive the Linux crowd up a wall. Microsoft has never identified which patents it’s talking about, which infuriates them more.

Linux Foundation chief Jim Zemlin went into a state of denial blogging that “a cross-licensing agreement is a non-news event. The fact that two entities with expensive stockpiles of outdated weapons felt the need to negotiate détente is not surprising. Let’s avoid second-guessing and implication. There’s nothing to see here. We have real code to write.”

Microsoft’s deputy general counsel for IP and licensing Horacio Gutierrez mumbled something about the Amazon deal demonstrating the companies’ “ability to reach pragmatic solutions to IP issues regardless of whether proprietary or open source software is involved.”

Microsoft says it’s cut more than 600 IP licensing deals in the six years since it started cashing in on its IP a la IBM.

It has only ever taken one company to court over patents in its whole life and that was TomTom last year over its Linux-based GPS navigation devices which used the FAT file format that’s in the Linux kernel. Ultimately the Dutch company caved and they settled out-of-court for money and the undertaking to tear out the offending code over time.

Amusingly – and without mentioning a word about Linux – Microsoft said Thursday that Panasonic had licensed its Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) technology, the latest generation of the Microsoft file system, as well as its FAT32 long file name technology for media devices. exFAT is supposed to up the size of files that can be stored on flash memory devices, the speed at which they can be accessed and facilitate the interchange between desktop PCs and consumer electronics. The deal includes a patent license.

Microsoft also has exFAT licensing agreements with Sanyo and Olympus.