A few weeks ago, I spent my Saturday soaking up some Windows 8 training at Microsoft. I was skeptical at first, that Windows 8 would become another "Microsoft Office Upgrade". You know, where all of the users that upgraded said "omg, what's a ribbon? I can't find anything! Roll back, roll back!"
Yes, there are many drastic changes between Windows 7 and Windows 8 - but the product is so awesome that you don't mind. It is very visual. One session talked about content vs. chrome. They asked windows users to draw windows. They drew a box, with an x in the corner, a menu on the top. Then they gave them windows 8 to test drive and asked them a few hoiurs later to draw windows again. They drew boxes across the screen with content in them. Taking the focus off of "chrome" and onto "content". It's an eye opener.
A weekend of dev learning is great but I was trying to think to myself, what would the benefit for First America be? Other than the proven decrease in support costs between xp and Windows 7. The one thing that stuck in my mind was the session, "We are all going to be filthy rich!" (Given by my fellow girl geek bud, Jennifer Marsman) Ok, yes, they were referencing Win 8 developers, but hear me out.
There are roughly 200m ipod/iphone devices that have access to the app store. There are 690m devices that have access to the new Microsoft store for metro apps. So looking at this from a corporate view, we may not sell that many Greyhound tickets from a windows 8 phone - but - I would definitely book a bolt bus ticket or check to see if my daughter actually got on her bus this morning via a win 8 phone. The increased customer visibility is an excellent opportunity. As Microsoft says it,
I'm actually excited - I can't wait for us to start doing more with the mobile app space.
Check out this link to view the new "Surface" - a tablet by Microsoft. It's big, it's thin, it's colorful. it's pretty - and best of all - it has Windows 8 on it. I'm thinking Santa is going to bring me one this year. I would suggest you all add it to your Christmas list as well.
http://mashable.com/2012/07/30/microsoft-surface-launch-date/#70591Surface-Tablet
The phrase that stuck out to me the most during that training was said by Jesse Liberty, a Telarik evangelist. (They sell third party development controls)
He was talking about writing code in C++ vs. XAML. He said "You can do an apendectomy via the throat, it just takes longer and it is more painful." For those of you that know the difference between C++ and XAML - that was lol funny. :)
Cheers,
-a
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