Microsoft has been criticized in the past for the sheer number of SKU’s they roll out for Windows. Windows 7 arrived in quite a few editions – Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, and also Windows 7 Enterprise for the volume licensing customers. All of these version have their own capabilities, and the Starter version had some severe limitations, that basically just begged the user to upgrade it. Confusing right? Compare that to Apple, who only makes one edition of Mac OSX for consumer machines. The good news is that Microsoft has finally listened to the criticism, has made the Windows 8 choice a lot easier for customers.

Here are the “normal” versions of Windows 8:

Windows 8: This is the defacto version of Windows 8 which will ship with most new consumer x86 based computers. x86 processors are your standard Intel or AMD based laptops or desktops. Users of Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium will have an easy upgrade path to this version of Windows 8. Expect the new Start Menu, with its all the included “tile” based apps, like Mail, Calendar, Messaging, Photos, Music, Video, and some social features. The user will of course still have access to the traditional desktop for apps that have not been written to utilize the new Start Menu tile interface.

Windows 8 Pro: Another x86 based Windows version, but focussed on business-line machines, who also require business features, like joining domains. Users from all versions of Windows 7 (except Enterprise) can upgrade to this version of Windows 8, and the feature additions are all valuable to power users. Security features include Bitlocker encryption, encrypted file system, group policy and remote desktop host. Expect business-focussed hardware to ship with this version of Windows.

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The Consumer Preview for Windows 8 has landed already, with plenty of praise, but perhaps more criticism for the new Metro interface. So far Microsoft has been pretty upfront about a 2012 launch for the new operating system, but reports seem to suggest that we will see Windows 8 launch as early as October, with a number of new devices in tow. Current work on Windows 8 is busy being wrapped up for July 2012, with the final Release to Manufacturing code released in September, according to Bloomberg.

Perhaps more significant is that this rollout date will include Microsoft‘s move into the ARM processor space, which will enable Windows 8 to run on the same architecture many smartphones and tablets are running, instead of only on x86 processors found in current desktops and laptops. The debut of Windows 8 will apparently launch on 5 ARM based devices (probably tablets), but a lot more x86 based devices. Microsoft is setting very strict rules for the ARM based products, similiar to what they are doing in the Windows Phone 7 space, while probably enforcing guidelines in terms of size and interaction. Expect very similiar layouts and designs from the ARM based device manufacturers.

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A few days ago The Daily showed off a picture of Microsoft Office running on an iPad – which understandably have gotten the tech press very excited. Even though there is only a single image, it clearly sports Microsoft’s new Metro-type interface which has slowly but surely started filtering into many of MS’s products.

Since the image went live, Microsoft has denied that any Office products will be made available for the iPad in “the coming weeks”. Take note they did not deny it ever coming to iPad, but only referred to the “coming weeks”. Right after Microsoft’s “non-denial”, Murdoch’s iPad only newspaper quickly made a statement: “We did not fabricate this story, nor did we fake the images in any way. A Microsoft employee, not a contractor, demoed a prototype of the app for us. We were repeatedly told that it wasn’t the final build and we did not report it as such, which is probably why Microsoft has said that it isn’t their software.”

But there are a few things that seem to suggest Microsoft will bring Office to the iPad sooner, rather than later. In recent times Microsoft has quickly started rolling out apps for Apple’s iOS operating system – these include Xbox Live, SkyDrive (which is also being pushed to other platforms as well), but most importantly, OneNote (which is part of the Office suite on a PC), which can sync with your online Live account. Clearly Microsoft is not afraid to develop for the iPad, so why would they be hesitant to make a native Office for iPad?

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Apple’s stock price jumped up quite a bit in the last few days (up to $493), which now makes it worth $456 billion, which is worth more than the two other computer superpowers, Microsoft and Google, combined.

Google’s shareprice is currently trading at 189.9 billion, after it took a 9 percent knock on recent missed expectations for earnings and revenue. Microsoft’s Windows division took a 6 percent revenue drop to $4.7 billion, but the rest of the company did very well. This is also thanks to the Xbox division which has finally turned profitable for Microsoft.

Now Apple’s market cap has grown tremendously, part in thanks to the iPhone business, which is alone worth $222 billion. Think about that for a second – the iPhone business revenue is now worth more than Microsoft. And this from a product that did not exist 5 years ago. This makes this interview with Steve Ballmer even funnier – watch his reaction after he gets asked what he thinks of the iPhone:

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Since Windows 95, Microsoft has been using the Start button, which eventually became a Start “orb” button in Windows 7. Leaked screenshots from the upcoming Windows 8 Customer Preview build shows that the familiar Orb button is missing this time round. Users will be expected to simply hover their mouse over any corner of the screen (almost like hot corners in Mac OS X), which will then bring up the new Metro-infused Start menu screen.

Touch screen users will also just hold their screen over a corner of the screen (or use a swipe action). Windows fans might be peeved at the lack of the Start Menu in Windows 8, but it should be pointed out that in future the Start Menu is now being replaced by the “Start Screen”, which uses Metro style apps that look very similiar to Windows Phone 7, and also share a lot of the code base. This will make future cross-platform development between Windows 8 and Windows Phone a lot easier.

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We all know the de facto internet filesharing and cloud storage tool until now has been Dropbox, but Microsoft has always had their own offering, SkyDrive. SkyDrive gave you 25GB of storage for free, which is a good deal more than Dropbox’s measly 3GB. Problem was, SkyDrive was not really available on anything else other than Windows (and Mac), and there was no mobile integration except with Windows Phone 7. Now Microsoft is starting to put SkyDrive into the devices people use every day, instead of only giving it to the Windows faithful.

From today SkyDrive is also available on iPhone, which is a major shift for Microsoft. “We realize that not everyone who relies on SkyDrive for sharing photos or accessing Office documents uses Windows Phone… yet. We have a long history of supporting iPhone customers with built-in support for Hotmail and with apps like Bing, Messenger, OneNote (with SkyDrive sync), and now Skype.”

“More generally, we believe you should have access to your personal content no matter which device you use. This is why we are excited to invest in HTML5—both on the web and on mobile—on http://skydrive.com.” iPhone users can access all of their cloud stored files, create folders, delete files and share links to folders, which fires off a invite using Mail.”

If you have not yet heard of SkyDrive, here are some of the features:

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Microsoft is slowly but surely starting to cater for people who use Apple’s devices – and the latest app from their stable is the My Xbox Live app. If you are a big online game player, and you hate tearing yourself away from your Xbox, the Xbox Live app will keep you posted on all the activity in your Xbox community. The app is beautifully made, and gives you a very special preview to how apps look on Windows Phone – it feels a little strange having a Metro interface on your iDevice.

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We have seen a few great enhancements arriving in Windows 8, including a brilliant new touch interface, and much more efficient use of system resources – but most of the marketing seems to be focussed on tablet form factors and touch screens. The other major development is that Windows 8 will have the ability to run on ARM processors (the same type of processor you might find in your phone or tablet), but it has been recently rumoured that this is only relevant to the Metro style apps, and the existing “desktop” will not be made available on the ARM devices.

So what happens to the existing bog-standard mouse and keyboard users? If you have spent some time with Windows 8 Developer Preview, you will know the interface is not particularly intuitive if you do not have a touch screen. Yes, it is by no means complete, but it makes one wonder how relevant the Windows 8 update will be to users who use standard desktop and notebook PCs.

“Windows 8 will be largely irrelevant to the users of traditional PCs, and we expect effectively no upgrade activity from Windows 7 to Windows 8 in that form factor.” – IDC

Now it looks like IDC has been asking this same question – stating that Windows 8 will be “largely irrelevant”, as one of their Top 10 predictions in 2012. Their reasons are simple –

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