In a short notice announcement, Microsoft let loose of a secret they’ve hidden very well. They are releasing a Microsoft branded Windows 8 powered tablet with the Surface name. The cover has a built in keyboard, and a built in kickstand. Powered by either an ARM processor or a x86 processor, it allows WindowsRT or Windows 8 Professional to be installed, respectively.

It appears to be very fast and responsive, and comes in a variety of colors. The one downside, which I believe will hinder a lot of sales for the tablet is that is it only available in Microsoft Stores and Microsoft’s online store. I’m very interested, but according to Microsoft pricing is to be announced closer to availability and is to be competitive with similar products from other vendors. Cost is the #1 factor in this one for me.

If you want Windows Phone 8, you have to buy it pre-installed on a new handset. No current devices will be upgradable to the new mobile OS. Bad news for many of us that bought into the Windows Phone platform. It looks like a nice upgrade to the OS, but like Android, this is what got me to leave: the fragmentation. Now, if I want any apps that are WP8, I have to upgrade my device. I’m going to be left behind.

Windows Phone 7.8, however, will be available on existing handsets and looks to be very nice. It fixes a lot of issues people are complaining about (too few icons on front screen, too much wasted real estate, etc.).

Windows Phone 8 introduces support for multi-core processors, amongst other things, so the "Lumia 900 getting support for using dual-core or NFC doesn’t mean a lot," says Sullivan, "because it doesn’t have the hardware to take advantage of that." Microsoft decided to focus its efforts on Windows Phone 8 to make it as good as it possibly could. "To do the work to bring all of those elements to a platform that can’t exploit them wasn’t necessarily the most efficient use of resource," explains Sullivan.

Microsoft is getting a lot of criticism from people over their Norwegian Developers Conference over a dance routine and their music lyrics. Personally, I don’t see the big deal. It depends on your audience. For me, I’d enjoy a conference like that. It’d really get the audience ready and excited. I’ve been to many conferences where the opening was very, very dry and it reflected on the whole experience and the product. Get the audience excited and engaged and they will be excited about the product. Give them something to talk about. Doesn’t have to be extreme or sexual. People are still talking about Steve Ballmers intro years ago when he was VERY excited.

Count me in as one of the very few supporters of conferences and openings like this.

This author thinks that in 50 years, Bill Gates will be remembered throughout the world but Steve Jobs will not. I like Bill Gates (not until recently, though), but I really don’t see his statue being raised in his image. Sure, he’s doing some amazing humanity things around the world, but nothing to be idolized about.

"Gates is the most ruthless capitalist, and then he wakes up one morning and he says, ‘enough.’ And he steps down, he takes his money, he takes it off the table.

"I firmly believe that 50 years from now, he will be remembered for his charitable work, no one will even remember what Microsoft is.

"And of the great entrepreneurs of this era people will have forgotten Steve Jobs. Who’s Steve Jobs again? There will be statues of Gates across the third world."

Not sure if the author of this piece is an Apple fanboy or is just looking for site views and trolling on purpose. Either way, I don’t really agree with much at all in this article. Personally, I hear a lot of praise with Windows. Sure, there are times when people get frustrated and dislike whatever they are working on. But, overall they’ve been very satisfied with Windows.

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anybody, except the very occasional programmer, praise Windows. In fact, it seems like every time a new version of Windows is released, the main selling point seems to be that "this time Microsoft got it right." Which is a message that gets kinda old after you’ve heard it five or six times.

With the release of the Release Preview of Windows 8, there have been a lot of consumer complaints. There has been a little talk on the enterprise side, but not a lot. This guy has some valid points on Windows 8 in the enterprise, and why it may or may not be quite ready for your office desk. He thinks it may be, but many others have their doubts.

Where Microsoft has been lacking is in focusing on the enterprise story. The need to do a better job conveying what organizations can expect. How does Active Directory play with Windows 8? Can I use my infrastructure to host roaming profiles instead of SkyDrive? And many other questions. I believe that there is a wealth of potential it is just going to take some work to get there but in the end I believe that we will be in a better place because of the change. The possibilities are endless so go out and reimagine your enterprise to take advantage of the last technologies out there.

NVIDIA is showing off the Asus Windows RT Tablet 600, which is of course powered by the new Tegra 3 quad core processor from NVIDIA. It does look very fluid, fast and ready for primetime. I love the touchscreen interface of Windows 8 (not going to mention using it on a desktop… for now), and the addition of a keyboard is very nice.

Now, my only question is how it is going to compare to it’s next big competitor: the iPad. I’m not really sure. Until pricing is announced (which is going to be the #1 thing in peoples minds, really), I don’t think we’ll know how these things are going to sell. It looks good, seems to perform well, but I’m still not sold on a ARM Windows tablet for >$600. If it came out at $500, I’d jump on it. I bought an iPad for the same price, and if a Windows powered tablet was available at the time in that price range, I’d seriously be considering it.

Steven Sinofsky has a new blog post announcing the availability of the Release Preview and the steps to their next milestone: Release to Manufacturing. Quite a bit of work left, but they can do it no doubt. Rumor has it that it could be done in as little as two months, with devices available around the 2012 holiday season.

The path to RTM is well defined and critical to the careful and high quality landing of Windows 8 for our PC manufacturing partners. The changes we make to the product from RP to RTM are all carefully considered and deliberate, including some specific feature changes we plan on making to the user experience (as we talked about in previous posts). This is a routine part of the late stages of bringing a complex product like Windows to market. Throughout this process, every change to the code is looked at by many people across development and test, and across many different teams.  We have a lot of engineers changing a very little bit of code.  We often say that shipping a major product means “slowing everything down.”  Right now we’re being very deliberate with every change we make and ensuring our quality is higher than ever as we progress towards RTM. The product is final when it is loaded on new PCs or broadly available for purchase.

Here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/release-preview

Get started and download now! I’m getting some great DL speeds right now. I’ll let you know my thoughts later this evening. Enjoy!

Skype is awesome. Now that it is in the hands of Microsoft, some people are worried. After seeing the Windows Phone application, I’m starting to worry. Hopefully, with the next release of the Windows Phone and a new version of Skype, things will change. Skype on other platforms, all other platforms, is really amazing and worthwhile.

Windows 8 may be another huge platform for them to take advantage of. But, I want them to release it when it’s ready – not when it needs to be out to maximize profits. Tony Bates has a few words that claim they are committed to Windows 8 and integrating more with Microsoft products. I’m on a ‘wait and see’ on this one.

On Windows Phone, Bates said that clearly Skype will have an opportunity to do some “first and best” work on Microsoft’s phone platform, though it is still focused on all major phone platforms.

“I think their phone is great,” Bates said. “I definitely think we can add value to the phone.”