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Comment by mindstab | Hacker News Reader

I don't buy this argument. About half of it is that Microsoft will be able to leverage it's dominant desktop market share, but if that were the case why have all previous MS phones and tablets failed. This isn't like it's Microsoft's first foray into another form factor and the article has nothing about that.

Considering Microsoft has pretty clearly failed every previous time in the last decade, the real question should be "what's new in Windows 8 that will change this" and the article has nothing on that. If the article's argument were valid, Windows on tablets and Windows on Phone would already be a dominant force.

The article reads like Windows 8 on tablet is Microsoft's first attempt into this market, not just their latest.

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For mobile computing Apple has definitely position Microsoft against itself, classic "innovator's dilemma" style - Microsoft has extracted huge profits from their intertwined cash cows from enterprise businesses (who pay today for the licensing of promised future revisions) - highly lucrative, but binding Microsoft to produce those new versions that run business critical desktop software.

Along comes Apple offering something stylish that consumers want (and are now purchasing in vast numbers), but which will never run "desktop software", as the entire paradigm of mouse+keyboard is thrown on it's edge.

Microsoft is caught in a bind - one one hand, if they ignore the new market, their old one will be dwarfed and their "network effect" will dwindle, draining their monopoly pricing.

On the other hand, they can't jump with both feet into this brave new market because of their pre-existing contracts to enterprise (they could develop two separate versions but that would again, cause them to lose more profits due to the increased operating costs).

And so you have Windows 8, which tries to be both to two separate markets, and yet, neither - at the same time. Highly ambitious considering all of Microsoft previous failed attempts to address tablet and mobile computing.

It'll be their first attempt with any hope of success. I'm thinking Kinect on a tablet, among other things. I don't think people were ready for tablets during Microsoft's initial offerings. Touch interfaces just hadn't come far enough.

Did you see thedaily's take [1] on kinect for laptops? The reason you won't see kinect on a tablet anytime soon is this one observation:

"It murders batteries

Devices in the field must be plugged in whenever possible since the Kinect technology drains juice in a hurry..."

Laptops generally have much larger battery capacity (for example my current laptop has 94Wh while an iPad2 has 25Wh), and if Kinect kills laptop battery, forget about mobile for now.

[1] http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/01/31/013112-tech-kinect-l...

I'm sure there's hurdles to overcome before it's a reality. Even if it's limited capacity, I think we're ready for gesture-based computing and I think Microsoft's closer to making that a reality than anyone else.

I disagree with your assessment. "ready for gesture-based computing" indicates more than just public acceptance (which is likely there) - it requires the hardware power and capacity, form factor, and killer-app software use cases.

This mindset of "build the OS, the apps will come" is no longer valid anymore, not when competitors like Google, Amazon and Apple are building out destinations and ecosystems, selling consumers on direct apps and tools rather than platforms that promise... especially, in Microsoft's case, when those promises have failed to pan out repeatedly in prior years.

If you fail, keep trying. Microsoft was bound to have some spaghetti stick to the wall eventually. I think the hardware is here; I really do.

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