Shock: Windows 8 optimized for desktop tablets

Microsoft demonstrated the next version of Windows this week, and the operating system has an interface almost nobody expected or predicted.

The default interface for Windows 8 will look almost nothing like Windows 7, but will look and feel a heck of a lot like Microsoft's cell-phone operating system, Windows Phone 7.

A proven strategy

When Microsoft transitioned users from DOS to Windows back in the early 1990s, they made Windows a "shell" on top of DOS, but made the Windows UI the default. (Note that the less aggressive, legacy-friendly alternative to that would have been to ship DOS with the Windows shell as an optional application.) Microsoft didn't force everyone to suddenly abandon DOS and the DOS applications they had invested in. Anyone who wanted to launch and run a DOS program could do so, but in a DOS window within the Windows shell. Microsoft's strategy paid off, and Windows adoption happened quickly.