Windows 8: Yes, No, or Maybe?

I have the Release Preview of Win-8 on here in a dual-boot arrangement with its predecessor Win-7, and when I switched into Windows 8 this morning, the security program popped up a notice that it has been 31 days since I updated the database of it. So I guess I don't have to tell you which operating system I prefer using, do I? It took a few minutes to update the security and update the Windows 8 itself, and then I discovered that there hasn't been all that much happening lately with Windows 8. Not many updates. Probably because Windows 8 is basically Windows 7 optimized for touch on portable devices.

Portable devices being smart phones, iPads, iPods and iAin'tGotAnyOfThem....
And 73% of those ubiquitous little time-wasters are powered by ARM processors. So what's an ARM processor? you ask. ARM stands for 'Advanced RISC Machine'. And that is...? That is a 'Reduced Instruction Set Computer', meaning one designed to perform a smaller number of types of computer instructions, so it can operate at a higher speed. Each instruction type requires additional transistors and their circuitry, so the larger the list of instruction types a computer is designed to handle, the more complex it is, and the slower it will perform those operations.

Windows 8, being optimized for touch devices of the mostly portable variety,
thus mostly running on that ARM architecture, will have a wide variety of types of hardware devices being offered with it. And there's a couple of things to worry about with that: Firstly, no ARM-powered Cloud storage has come along yet, because the software used needs tweaking to make it run smoothly on non-X86 chip architecture, and secondly, most ARM processors are 32-bit while the enterprise software is often 64-bit. That latter point may not be such a big deal, because (at least on X86 machines) 64-bit accepts and runs 32-bit programming, but 32-bit will not accept nor run 64-bit.

Larry Dignan, Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet, in an article titled 'Microsoft's Windows 8 biggest wild card: the hardware' sums it up by saying: "Bottom Line: Windows 8...especially on the hardware side of the equation...isn't all that friendly to your average impulse buy."

Which probably explains why Microsoft is reportedly  starting this weekend to spend between 1.5 and 1.8 billion dollars promoting Windows 8 to those of us among the unconvinced and unwashed masses out here in cyberspace. And that brings me, belatedly, to today's Question Everything: "Is Windows 8 going to be Windows Vista, The Sequel?" I fervently hope not, because there's a lot riding on it, but the competition for the mobile market has a big head start on Mighty Microsoft so it's no stroll in the park, for sure.