It was the summer of '68. I was 17 when I went to see
2001: A Space Odyssey (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This was a year before the Apollo moon landing, which had aboard one of the smallest computers of the time:
How powerful was the Apollo 11 computer?
I watched 2001 again the second time on New Years Eve 2001. I was absolutely amazed on how much of that movie came to reality in 32 years! A talking computer controlling and hijacking a rather large spacecraft?! Then it was impossible for a human to fly the Space Shuttle. It took a powerful miniaturized computer to do so. The point is predicting what tech will be in the future. The tech giants all have their vision and MS has theirs, which all include mobility and miniaturization.
Make no mistake that MS is "weaning" us all off the Desktop multitasking environment into the Modern/Metro, walled garden, native Cloud-centric, and (sooner or later) multitasking environment able to run across any device. That, I believe, is there ultimate goal. Not that savvy to know how they will accomplish multiple "snapping" windows in the Modern/Metro, for apps have to be able to run across different size screens. That to me seems to be the biggest hurdle. It's not that any software can't be written in that environment. That will eventually come. Incidentally, my HP all-in-one has a Modern/Metro app to it, although the driver is Win32. If Hp or any company wants to join MS's vision, then all things will be ported there. It's as simple as that. A safer walled garden system just makes too much sense let alone running on any device.
@ Jumbo
Congratulations on buying and receiving your Surface and anyone else for that matter. You are a good example of an "older" pro that keeps an open mind on new tech. It seems to me that if and when MS creates a defined Modern/Metro multitasking environment you'll be one to totally switch over. I see others here as well.
Here's something else I think will eventually come to be. Kari's post on this page:
What would you like to see in Window 9? | Page 3 | Windows 9 Forums
Last but not least > We, although advanced in tech at our own levels, are a minority of users. I think when enterprise and the general public finally get what MS is up to they will gobble it up. An OS to run across multiple devices. An initial cost in training, but in the long run it will be less expensive. No training on different devices. It will all be familiar.
Oh! One more thing. Is MS intruding their search engine, advertising, services, and the like? You bet'cha. They all are. Doesn't seem to be any way around it except perhaps a few systems like Linux, but if they become popular that will eventually come.. The market rules. It's the way of Capitalism.