Windows 8 “The (Microsoft) Empire Strikes Back?”

Microsoft very recently announced its Windows 8 platform (Slated for Q4 2011) and,  by appearances, has finally geared up to take on rivals in the booming mobile and tablet markets. Built on top of lessons learned from Windows Vista and it’s much more successful Windows 7 offerings, combined with it’s still emerging Windows Phone 7 infrastructure, Microsoft seems to be looking to fuse it’s solutions into a “One Size Fits All” product that will align its behemoth PC market share with a struggling tablet market completely dominated by Apple.

If successfully executed, Windows 8 will allow end-users to have a common interface on which to run all of their web-enabled devices, be they phones, tablets or PC’s (desktop and laptop). With scalability based on the devices computing power Windows 8 appears to be able to adapt its capabilities to make the most of the hardware available.

The “tiled” front end is actually an overlay that sits on the OS which, according to Microsoft End User Experience Engineers, offers a more application friendly environment which showcases the personality of each app without having to actually click into it to receive pertinent information such as weather and recent emails.

For those that prefer the file system look, a simple configuration change allows a much more classic Windows feel with file a start and task bars available.

This is combined with features such as mouse and keyboard support, multi-monitor support and capability for 4G/Wi-Fi and WWAN connections.

Out of all the would be iPad killers that have been put out by Google, RIM and the like, Microsoft may have all the pieces in place to make a run at Apple. And by utilizing it’s already “force-choke” like grip on the business and consumer PC markets, Microsoft may, in fact, be telling the world that it does find your lack of faith…. “disturbing”.