I have my fears about how Microsoft is going to handle Windows 8 for ARM devices; I think that if Windows 8 is used to describe both x86/x64 and ARM experiences even though they are different it is going to cause massive confusion for consumers. You can read about my idea for using the name Metro instead of Windows 8 for Windows 8 on ARM.

However, this recent news makes me wonder if I needed to be quite so concerned about Microsoft’s planned implementation for Windows 8 on ARM. We know that the traditional desktop experience on touch devices is not good and I expect that to be pretty much true for Windows 8 even though Microsoft is implementing some changes. Therefore, a full desktop on an ARM touchscreen device just doesn’t make sense.

And yet, if I was to have an ARM tablet there could well be times when I would want access to the Office suite for working, and not just some Metro version of it but the actual desktop experience. If I was to connect a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to the ARM tablet then I would have a fully function workstation. There aren’t really many applications I am going to want access to a the traditional desktop if I have a Windows 8 device with a touchscreen. But the majority of the applications I will want are Microsoft’s own software or from large tech companies (Adobe) that should be able to get the required certificates to run on the restricted desktop.

I am sure people will complain with whatever path Microsoft take with the desktop on ARM. No desktop at all will cause confusion and people would want to know how they could access “Windows” on their Windows 8 device, or if Microsoft put the traditional desktop on ARM devices then people would complain that they need a keyboard and mouse to really be able to use the experience well. Therefore, I can see how a restricted desktop might just do the trick.

Microsoft might require slight changes in apps for the restricted desktop, such as bigger buttons to make it easier to use the apps with a touchscreen. This seems like it could appease those who would complain if the desktop was removed or kept in Windows 8 for ARM devices. This could work well and I can see why Microsoft is keen to offer a desktop experience on all versions of Windows 8 even though it might not be the full experience

My only concern with this idea though is that a restricted desktop for the ARM version of Windows 8 sounds like a compromise in a “no-compromise” version of Windows.

The day started off with meeting the fellow bloggers, the PR people and Ian Moulster who is a Product Manager at Microsoft UK. We were given a brief for the day that included 2 challenges for us bloggers; the first was to take photos from the London Eye and then ask our Twitter followers to name the building we photo’d and from where we too the photo, the second challenge was to make a PowerPoint about the day using the photos we took.

On board the London Eye we had to take photos of:

- St Paul’s Cathedral

- The BT Tower

- The Battersea Power Station

- The Shard

These photos were then stored on SkyDrive and shared to Twitter. I was at an advantage to the bloggers who didn’t have a Windows Phone as I could share my photo to Twitter and have it automatically save it SkyDrive. People using alternative devices had to upload the photo to SkyDrive and then share it to Twitter manually.

It is very easy to share anything from SkyDrive with people via several different ways. It is possible to email someone a link to a file or folder on SkyDrive or share via a social network (so long as the user has linked their Windows Live account with their social network account) and even generate a link to share anywhere, including Twitter. This is a relatively new feature and was introduced in one of the recent SkyDrive updates.

Below are the photos I took whilst on the London Eye.

Next up we had to make a PowerPoint presentation to show the others the photos we had taken. We started the PowerPoints in the feature rich PowerPoint Web App but I decided to then continue work on the PowerPoint on the desktop version. This gave me some additional customisation options, allowing me to make a Metro theme for the presentation. Because I had started the PowerPoint in the Web App and then opened it in the desktop version all I had to do was click the “save” button to save the updated version on my desktop back to the cloud. Users don’t have to manually upload a newer version of an Office document if the start editing a document on SkyDrive and then choose to open it up in the desktop version.

Below you can view the embedded PowerPoint I quickly cobbled together during the event.

There were some interesting points made during the event about SkyDrive. One that struck me was that there is no easy way to add a photo, or indeed any file, stored on SkyDrive to an Office Web App document. This seems to be an oversight and one I hope Microsoft addresses soon, this is certainly a feature that makes a lot of sense.

I had a very enjoyable day and despite knowing most of what was talked about and shown off I think it was a very beneficial day for all those who attended. I am looking forward to what else Microsoft has planned for SkyDrive and the Web Apps. If you are interested in keeping up to date with the latest SkyDrive news then you might want to check out the official Windows Live blog and check this out to find out more about SkyDrive.

You can download the app from the Windows Phone Marketplace.

The first piece of information is a fairly small piece but perhaps one that will be welcomed. In Tango Microsoft apparently plans to tweak the design of the media controls in Windows Phone so that it takes up less room on the screen. In the first release of Windows the media player controls were inconsistently placed across the OS but with Mango Microsoft changed this problem with a revised UI for the media playback. However, the new design has received complaints that it takes up too much vertical space on the screen. In Tango the design for the media controls will appear like a notification and therefore take up less space at the top of the screen. I wonder if any Microsoft certifications could help the designers of this.

Sadly I have no images of how this looks but it’s an interesting piece of information and something I am keen to see how it actually looks.

The other piece of information about Tango is perhaps more substantial and it is that the update will supposedly allow users to create “folders” on their start screen. This will allow users to group applications together for a tidier start screen and I would guess quicker access to apps. Again I have no images to show how this feature looks, nor do I have information on quite how this works. I would imagine, though, that the “folder” tile would show notifications from all the tiles held within.

Both of these additions to Windows Phone are things that I have seen requested before so this should please some people. Obviously though until Microsoft actually announce any of this we shall just have to wait and see

The visualizer about page says this of the website:

VISUALIZER BY MSN PLAYS 47 SONGS AND SHOWS MILLIONS OF PICTURES. THE LYRICS WITH A TOTAL OF OVER 11’000 WORDS EXPLORE FLICKR AS TAGS FOR IMAGES, THE DYNAMIC SELECTION WITHIN THE SEARCH RESULTS HAPPENS RANDOMLY. EACH TIME A SONG IS BEING PLAYED, VISUALIZER BY MSN CREATES A COMPLETELY NEW AND UNIQUE VIDEO CLIP. ENJOY IT AND USE IT: WRITE YOUR OWN WORDS, PLAY IT WITH A RANDOM SONG AND SEND THE SOUNDING MESSAGE TO YOUR FRIENDS. IT’S GREAT, IT’S FUN, IT’S HIGHLY PERSONAL.

The site has been tailored for IE9 and I believe uses HTML5 to play the music and transition between the photos.

This is not only a fantastic way to view photos from Flickr but it’s equally a great visualizer for a music player. I like the way Zune shows a collection of album art and photos of the artist when playing music but I think that this might be an even better way of showing images when playing music. My only complaint is that when lyrics come in thick and fast the photos from Flickr cycle through far too quickly , it would be nice if it missed out some words and had a slightly longer transition between the photos.

This is well worth checking out and I hope to see Microsoft make further use of this in other products.

I am really looking forward to what crazy things we will be able to do with our PCs once Kinect for Windows is released, however, I have no plans to buy the Kinect for Windows device. That’s crazy talk, it’s just too expensive. I suppose if there are number of high quality and very useful apps released I could be tempted but I don’t see myself buying this.

Which gets me thinking; if I am reluctant to buy a Microsoft then what about people who aren’t all that interested in Microsoft. Seems to me like it will be a pretty hard sell. There have been no ads for Kinect for Windows and there is certainly no real buzz about it online but if Microsoft want this to sell well then this is the kind of things they need.

I therefore wonder if Microsoft don’t want this to be a consumer device at the minute but more a tool to get developers to build great apps for Windows that make use of Kinect. Developers are going to be more interested in Kinect for Windows than the vast majority of consumer and with such a high price tag most consumers aren’t going to be interested. Obviously developers could use the Kinect for Xbox device but obviously that’s for the Xbox and therefore perhaps not all that reliable for testing PC apps.

To me February seems like a weird time of year to release Kinect for Windows, surely late November would have made more sense. Again it suggests to me that Microsoft isn’t positioning Kinect for Windows as a must have consumer device yet. However, what would make sense is if Microsoft want is releasing the Kinect for Windows hardware in February because its the same month that the Windows Store is being opened and Windows 8 beta will be released. It has long been rumoured that Windows 8 will have Kinect support baked in.

What if Microsoft wants developers to start making Kinect apps for Windows 8’s new Metro interface. Also what if Microsoft wants beta testers to go out and buy Kinect for Windows to look for bugs in the way it is integrated with Windows 8.

If you are interested you can read my thoughts about Microsoft at CES this year over on Liveside.

As expected Androids were there in numbers to meet us on the battle ground but our allies came in with the heavy machinery. Nokia arrived with the Lumia 900 to fire off some LTE rounds in the Android general direction, this now brings us up to weapon parity with the Androids. The 900 also brings with it 4.3’ deflectors rather than the 800’s 3.7’.

Thankfully though we also had HTC on hand who provided additional LTE cover with their new TITAN II which has built upon the spec of the original TITAN. The new TITAN has much improved optical equipment offering 16MP and it even has 4.7’ deflectors.

Nokia has now mobilised its forces on the North American front after joining us on the European front only a few months ago; the Lumia 710 weaponry will be going online tomorrow. In the near future Nokia will also be backing us up with the Lumia 800 which has proved to be an extremely powerful weapon over on the European front. Nokia announced it’s arrival on the North American front with its leader announcing that “there has been a shift from the Battle of Devices to a War of Ecosystems”. We are pleased to welcome them to this war with us and look forward to further developments in what they are calling “Rolling Thunder”.

We were hoping that Samsung and LG were going to pledge additional resources to the operation but that support has not materialised.

Other good news came just before “Operation CES” swung into action as it appears that several very influential members of the aristocracy appear to have come round to our way of thinking.

Our economy has continued its growth reaching 50,000A a few weeks ago. We are now adding over well over 1000A a month and should be able sustain increasing growth in our economy for the foreseeable future. This kind of growth sees us matching that of the iOS at the same point in their campaign.

Until next time sir, when I hope to be in a position to tell you about our plans for “Codename MWC”.

"The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun, the Ecosystem War has."

I don’t just want to reiterate the great news coverage that can easily be found across the internet so I thought I’d do something a little different. If you want to know more about Windows Phone and other Microsoft news from CES I’d recommend that you read the Verge, Engadget, Neowin or Liveside.

Today I saw some new screenshots from Windows 8 that all come from the Metro part of Windows. Now I don’t know if these images are real screenshots or just a very good concept shot being passed off as screenshots, I do know though that there isn’t really anything in any of these images that makes me doubt their authenticity.

First up are the screenshots of the OS itself which will then be followed by screenshots of the Windows Live app.

The above image is similar to the file explorer on the Windows 8 Developer Preview however I think that the inclusion of SkyDrive as a Library is very important. I imagine that it won’t just be the Metro side of Windows 8 that features this Library but also the traditional desktop too. If SkyDrive is going to be integrated into Windows 8 then this will be extremely significant news. However, without knowing how this computer is set up it might be that a user needs to install the SkyDrive app, that we have briefly been shown off before, to allow the SkyDrive Library to appear.

The next image shows basically the same view but in a different colour, it looks just as good, but here we can see some of the control options that are available to users. It appears that the user has clicked on “home” to be shown these options. Now what interests me is that in this image the small arrow on the right of the “home share view” suggesting that the view of additional options can be collapsed. Also interesting to note is that there are more elements that just “home”. I think what we are seeing here is the Metro version of the Ribbon UI. This is another significant development and might just show how the Ribbon UI can actually look good.

The options available seem fairly simple ones, although I am interested to know what “history” offers and how that will look.

The next image is another very interesting one that I believe shows the Documents Library. It is good to see that the documents have a preview thumbnail of what is in them and I wonder if these animate. For example Word documents might scroll through the text and PowerPoint files could cycle through the slides. What i really like though is the coloured bar at the bottom of the preview image that shows what format each item is. I had wondered how people will be able to figure out what kind a file an item in the Metro file explorer would be but this shows it very easily. I do wonder how limited this feature might be though is only colours are used to distinguish between the different files.

I am not sure that there is anything new in the above image but it’s always good to see more Metro.

The first thing that struck me when I saw this was the the logo that is sitting in the top left of the of the app. That was first used by Windows Phone but now appears that it will be used by Windows too. I’m not sure what to make of it, not sure if it will help Windows Phone or hide it.

Anyway, on to the app itself. I believe this is the Windows Live app which will offer all functionality of Hotmail, Messenger and SkyDrive in one place. This because of the icons in the app bar at the bottom. The app looks good to me and seems to readily offer many of the features that users are going to want all within a lovely Metro design.

You’ll notice that on this image a different icon in the app bar has been selected so now we see the Messenger part of the app. Again this looks good and it appears that this section of the app features pivots that we have come to know and love on Windows Phone with “threads people what’s new”.

I can guess what the Calendar section of this app looks like but I am very interested to know what the SkyDrive section looks like and also what the Office icon indicates. I can’t image that the Metro Office apps for Windows 8 are going to be part of the Windows Live app so it seems a bit confusing to have the Office icon in the app bar. There are of course several explanations for the Office icon but none seem to make complete sense to me. If it’s to show the Office documents stored in SkyDrive then why not have a special pivot in the SkyDrive section. Maybe then the icon offers up basic Office features, just like the Office Web Apps, but I would have thought having free Office apps for Windows 8 would make more sense.

Just a collection of images of Hotmail.

Apparently when users to navigate to Bing using Windows 8 they will see a homepage design that is not all that new but what is new is the fact that the rectangles at the bottom are now true Metro inspired boxes. Before, whenever this design was shown off it was very cluttered with lots of text and whilst being a Metro inspired design it didn’t conform to the Metro principles.

With the launch of Windows 8 it makes sense that Microsoft will update it’s website to fit in with the same Metro look. What we are seeing here is potentially that very design. I have to say that both are great and are far better than the current design on the homepage that is meant to be Metro. I am not sure whether these are just fan made designs or if Microsoft is trialling both of these.

What do you think about these new screenshots? I know I am getting more and more excited for Windows 8. I am looking forward to hopefully hearing more about Windows 8 from CES and I’m looking forward to getting the beta version at the end of February.

If names are not correct, language will not be in accordance with the truth of things.

I think that quote sums up my feelings towards Windows 8’s current name. To me Windows 8 is not just a progression of the Windows OS or indeed its brand but it is actually far more than that. When most people think of Windows they see the desktop, icons, a recycle bin, a start menu and a taskbar. That image has been ingrained into what we think of Windows for the past 16 years. It is something you have likely seen every day if you have attended an online school.

However, with Windows 8 that image of Windows will not be correct. Yes, the traditional desktop will still be there in Windows 8 but the initial view of Windows 8 that users will see is the Metro Start Screen. Equally, Windows’ namesake aren’t true windows in the Metro part of Windows 8.

To me there are many ways in which the name “Windows” is not correct for Windows 8. The Metro part of Windows 8 is nothing like what people know Windows to be; no desktop, no taskbar and no windows. Equally it’s not what many perceive Windows to be, it’s fast, it’s got a beautiful design and it “just works”.

The name, Windows 8, will in fact confuse consumers who expect the desktop and even keep some consumers away from being interested in the OS. If Microsoft was to consider changing the name of Windows 8 to something brand new there could have several dangers involved such as scaring people away, a lot of people trust the Windows name.

But to add more potential confusion to the mix it’s been widely rumoured that Microsoft effectively plans to offer two versions of Windows 8; one for ARM devices that only has the Metro part of Windows 8 on it and one for x86 computers that has both the traditional desktop and the Metro aspect. If both ARM and x86 devices are marketed as having the same OS that is going to cause major confusion amongst consumers. The name “Windows 8” would be in correct for both devices as either one would offer drastically different features, capabilities and experiences.

I have spent a bit of time wondering how Microsoft might overcome this potential issue and think the best thing for Microsoft to do would be to treat the Metro part of Windows 8 as a separate part. I know that Metro technically is just as much a part of Windows as the desktop is but when people think of Windows they think of the desktop, the two are synonymous and for the Metro designed Start Screen to appear alongside the desktop will just be confusing.

Therefore I hope Microsoft does something different when it brands Windows 8. What I think would be best is that the new Metro version of Windows 8 that will only feature on ARM devices will have a new name. Where as the more traditional version of Windows 8 that will work on x86 devices should still use the Windows name. Therefore people who want a new “Windows” PC won’t be confused when they get a Windows 8 desktop or notebook PC and equally people who don’t want a taskbar on a tablet won’t be scared off by the Windows name.

If Microsoft were to brand the ARM version of Windows 8 in the same way that they branded Windows then it should probably be called Tiles. However, if Microsoft was to make both tiles and windows I think people might think that it was actually an interior design company and not the world’s leading software company. What in fact makes more sense is for Microsoft to simply call it Metro.

This will allow new devices that only have the Metro UI part of Windows 8 to say that they run Metro and more traditional PCs can say that they run Windows 8 Metro, or Windows 8 with Metro. Metro will be something new, cool and something very different from Microsoft. “Windows” is not the correct name for many of the new features and aspects of Windows 8 and I hope that Microsoft realise that and will allow consumers to see the truth of how good the Metro side of Windows 8 without being put off by the stigma that Windows has. “Windows 8” is not the truthful name for “Windows 8”.

Following along with this idea I would hope that Windows Phone loses the Windows part and adopts Metro. Metro Phone sounds much better than Windows. It could also be used for the name of the next Xbox; how about Metro Xbox or Xbox Metro.

Do you think that Microsoft needs to be careful how it names Windows 8? Do you think that people will be confused if ARM devices apparently run the same OS as x86 PCs when actually they run a new, modern part of Windows 8? Let me know.

Microsoft describe the MVP programme as:

We seek to recognize the best and brightest from technology communities around the world with the Microsoft® Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award.

These exceptional community leaders come from a wide range of backgrounds. They are teachers, artists, doctors, engineers, as well as technologists, who actively share their high-quality, real-world technical expertise with the community and with Microsoft.

With the MVP Award, we thank these inspiring individuals for representing the voice of thousands in the community through the powerful and independent feedback they give us, and for helping our customers maximize the potential of their software.

Now I guess I need to start saving rather rapidly for the MVP Summit next month.

By the way, I find it amusing that I am now an MSP and MVP. I wonder if I could achieve MCP too, or any other M*P titles that Microsoft offer.