SMB IT Journal

Microsoft’s latest desktop reboot is out in the wild and lots of people are getting their hands on it and using it today.  Is it time to consider moving to Windows 8?  Absolutely.

That doesn’t mean that Windows 8 should be your main desktop later this afternoon, but considering a move to Windows 8 is important to do early.  It is a popular approach to hold off on new software updates until systems have been in production use for months or years and there is value to this concept – allowing others to vet, test and uncover issues while you sit back and remain stable on existing, well known software.  But there is a reason why so many businesses forge ahead and that is because using software early delivers the latest features and advantages as early as possible.

Unlike software coming from a small company with limited support and testing resources, Microsoft’s software is incredibly well tested both internally and by the community before it is available to end users.  Few software is more heavily vetted prior to release.  That doesn’t mean that release day rollouts are wise but beginning to evaluate new products early can have major advantages both because of the newest features are available to those that decide to use the new product but also the most time to find an alternative for those decide to migrate away.  Early decision making is important to success.

The reality is, that while many businesses should take the time to evaluate Windows 8 versus alternative solutions – a practice that should be done regularly regardless of new features or changes to environments to ensure that traditional choices remain the best current choices, nearly all businesses today will be migrating to Windows 8 and remaining in the Microsoft ecosystem for quite some time to come.

This means that many companies should be looking to make the jump to Windows 8 sooner, rather than later.  Windows 8, while seemingly shockingly new and innovative, is based on the same Windows NT 6 family kernel that began with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 and continued through the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 era and is shared with Windows Server 2012.  This kernel is mature and robust and the vast majority of the code and features in Windows 8, user interface aside, are well tested and extremely stable.  Windows 8 uses fewer resources, on the same hardware, as Windows 7 which, in turn, was lighter and faster than Windows Vista.  The sooner that you move to Windows 8, the sooner you get more performance out of your existing hardware and the longer you have to leverage that advantage.

Windows 8 brings some big changes that will impact the end users, without a doubt.  These changes can be, in some cases, quite disruptive but with proper training and preparation users should return to regular productivity levels in a reasonable amount of time and often will be more productive once they are comfortable with the new environment and features.  Those that do not fall into one of these two categories are the smaller, niche user group that are prime candidates for moving to a completely different ecosystem where their needs can be more easily met.

If you are an organization destined to be running Windows 8, or its successors, “someday” then most likely you should be running Windows 8 today to start leveraging its advantages as soon as possible so that you can use them as long as possible.  If Windows truly is the platform that is best for you you should embrace it and accept the “hit” of transitioning to Windows 8 now, swallow that bitter pill and be done with it, and for the next several years while your competitors are whining about having to move to Windows 8 “someday” you will be happily leveraging your older hardware, your more efficient workflows and your more modern systems day after day, reaping the benefits of an early migration to a stable platform.

It is common for IT departments to take a “wait and see” approach to new system migrations.  I am convinced that this is created by a culture of hoping that IT staff will leave their current positions before a migration occurs and that they will land a new position elsewhere where they have already migrated.  Or perhaps they hope to avoid the migration completely awaiting a later version of Windows.  This second argument does carry some weight as many shops skip operating system revisions but doing so often brings extra overhead in security issues, application compatibility effort and other issues.

Windows 8 is unique in that it is a third release of the Windows NT 6 kernel series so it comes as a rare, very stable late release member of its family (the NT 6 family is sometimes called the “Vista Family.”)  Windows 8′s NT designation is 6.2.  The only other Microsoft NT operating system to reach the x.2 status was when Windows XP SP3 and Server 2003 R2 released with the NT 5.2 kernel – a part of the Windows 2000 family.  Late release kernels are important because they tend to deliver the utmost in reliability and represent an excellent point in which to invest in a very long term deployment strategy that can last for nearly a decade.

Whether you agree with Microsoft’s unified platform vision or the radical approach to user interface included in Windows 8, you need to decide if you are continuing down the path of the Microsoft platform and if so, embrace it rather than fight it and begin evaluating if a move to Windows 8 and, by extension, Windows Server 2012 are right for you.  Don’t avoid Windows 8, it isn’t going to go away.  For most shops making the decision to move today will sow the seeds for long term benefits that you can reap for years and years to come.

Talk around Microsoft’s new upcoming desktop operating, Windows 8, centers almost completely on its dramatically departing Metro User Interface, borrowed from the Windows Phone which, in turn, borrowed it from the ill-fated Microsoft Zune.  Apparently Microsoft believes that the third time is the charm when it comes to Metro.

To me the compelling story of Windows 8 comes not in the fit and finish but the under the hood rewiring that hint at a promising new future for the platform.  In the past Microsoft has attempted shipping Windows Server OS on some alternative architectures including, for those who remember, the Digital Alpha processor and more recently the Intel Itanium.  In these previous cases, the focus was on the highest end Microsoft platforms being run on hardware above and beyond what the Windows world normally sees.

Windows 8 promises to tackle the world of multiple architectures in a completely different way – starting with the lowest end operating system and focusing on a platform that is lighter and less powerful than the typical Intel or AMD offering, the low power ARM RISC architecture with the newly named Windows RT (previously WoA, Windows on ARM.)

The ARM architecture is making its headlines as Microsoft attempts to drive deep into handheld and low power devices.  Windows RT could signal a unification between the Windows desktop codebase and the mobile smartphone codebase down the road.  Windows RT could mean strong competition from Microsoft in the handheld tablet market where the iPad dominates so completely today.  Windows RT could be a real competitor to the Android platforms.

Certainly, as it stands today, Windows RT has a lot of potential to be really interesting, if not quite disruptive, with where it will stand upon release.  But I think that the interesting story lies beneath the surface in what Windows RT can potentially mean for the datacenter.  What might Microsoft have in store for us in the future?

The datacenter today is moving in many directions.  Virtualization is one driving factor as are low power server options such as Hewlett-Packard’s Project Moonshot which is designed to bring ARM-based, low power consumption servers into high end, horizontally scaling datacenter applications.

Currently, today, the number of server operating systems available to run on ARM servers, like those coming soon from HP, are few and far between and are mostly only available from the BSD family of operating systems.  The Linux community, for example, is scrambled to assemble even a single, enterprise-supported ARM-based distribution and it appears that Ubuntu will be the first out of the gate there.  But this paucity of server operating systems on ARM leaves an obvious market gap and one that Microsoft may be well thinking of filling.

Windows Server on ARM could be a big win for Microsoft in the datacenter.  A lower cost offering broadening their platform portfolio without the need for heavy kernel reworking since they are already providing this effort for the kernel on their handheld devices.  This could be a significant push for Windows into the growingly popular green datacenter arena where ARM processors are expected to play a central role.

Microsoft has long fought to gain a foothold in the datacenter and today is as comfortable there as anyone but Windows Servers continue to play in a segregated world where email, authentication and some internal applications are housed on Windows platforms but the majority of heavy processing, web hosting, storage and other roles are almost universally given to UNIX family members.  Windows’ availability on the ARM platform could push it to the forefront of options for horizontally scaling server forms like web servers, application servers and other tasks which will rise to the top of the ARM computing pool – possibly even green high performance compute grids.

ARM might mean exciting things for the future of the Windows Server platform, probably at least one, if not two releases out.  And, likewise, Windows might mean something exciting for ARM.