Will they be able to modify the program to run on both PCs and tablet devices..
If those tablets use ARM chips, then the Windows 8 software will have to be completely rewritten.
It also means that the current crop of programmers will have to learn to program with the same constraints that W4Wg developers had, if they want their product to work on tablets.
For Intel based chips, Win8 software should be "acceptable", for various negative values of "acceptable".
The big issue is whether or not UEFI OS locks are required, and if so, how they are implemented.
And maybe even Windows 8 smartphones?
Nokia is burning too much cash, to survive until Win8 is released.
- In 2007, Nokia shipped 200,000,000 units of the Nokia 1100.
- In 2012, its flagship product, the Lumia 800 sold under a million units.
- The Nokai e7 sold more units than the flagship produce, despite Nokia's passive attempts to kill off the e7.
- There are more Android activations per day, than Nokia sells WinMo phones in a year.
- There are more Nokia WinMo activations in one year, than the rest of the WinMo offerings, combined.
To put it in monetary terms, last year Nokia posted a profit of 745€. This year it posted a loss of 1,400,000€.
Even more graphically.
- In 2007, Nokia had a 66% worldwide marketshare.
- In 2008, Nokia had a 52.4% worldwide marketshare, most of which were Symbian devices.
- In 2010, Symbian had a 37.6% worldwide market share, with Android at 22.7%, RIM at 16.0% and iOS at 15.1%;
- In 4th Quarter 2011, Android had a 50.9% marketshare, iOS had 23.9%, Symbian had 11.7%, RIM 8.8%, and WinMo 1.1%.
The only way Microsoft can get anybody to manufacture WinMo phones, is by using either extortion, or bribery, or economic sabotage, or a combination thereof.
It will be interesting to see what happens with Windows 8.
For corporate use, it is DOA:
* Tablets fail basic security requirements;
* Servers require a complete rewrite of mission critical apps that haven't been migrated from WinXP;
* Desktops require a complete rewrite of mission critical apps that haven't been migrated from WinXP, or, more commonly, Win2K;
jonathon