Are Windows 8 tablets going to be released before Christmas already?

Posted by Charbax – September 12, 2011

The awesome demo Microsoft presented at Computex last June looked like Windows 8 can quite possibly be ready for release in consumer devices before Christmas, at least in tablet mode.

How can the ARM Version of Windows 8 be ready for release already?

– On a tablet, they don’t really need to have all the .exe apps support, on ARM anyways, they can virtualize all that later.

– Microsoft probably is tempted to be a part of the Christmas tablet sales party. All they have to do is release an ARM tablet version of it now.

– The tablets don’t need as powerful ARM processors as Laptops, as you want full screen multi-tab web browsing to be fully smooth on a Laptop in Desktop mode. On a tablet, consumers are ok with a bunch of full screen UI stuff moving around, and while multi-tasking is awesome, basic consumers don’t even really know how to fully take use of it on a touch screen device.

– They can call those Beta tablets, or something.

What Microsoft should do with Windows 8 if they want to win market share and if they want a chance to compete with Android, Chrome OS and iOS on the platform ecosystem:

– Make it free

– Make it open source

Sure, this is a very weird suggestion for Microsoft. But why not?

Can’t Microsoft find other ways to monetize their platform than upfront licencing and patent lawsuits against competing platforms? If I am the Microsoft CEO, I tell them to focus on monetizing web apps, web services, provide the Office suite as a fully optimized web app, with paid services online for power users and the enterprise. Full cloud based Virtualization of all Windows apps, provide that as a service. If Windows used to get an average of $50 per Windows licence, they can focus to try to get as much or more through cloud services.

Should Microsoft be ashamed of revealing their source code to the world? The idea of open source is to enable the most manufacturers access to customize and optimize the OS for all types of hardware. Because manufacturers have to differentiate with hardware, Microsoft cannot win market share if all the Windows hardware looks too similar. They need all the smallest Chinese manufacturers to be using Windows 8 and sell those devices to developing countries and worldwide without worrying about optimizing, without worrying about paying licence fees, the strategy of free and open source instantly legalizes the Chinese and Indian market for Microsoft.

At last CeBIT, I interviewed Microsoft about Open Source, with the right CEO in charge (can Steve Ballmer do it?), they should embrace open source for Windows 8: