At the D9 Conference this month, Microsoft demonstrated the next generation of Windows, internally code-named “Windows 8,” for the first time. The software giant calls it as a reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface. While it keeps the power, flexibility and connectivity of Windows intact, the next generation operating system offers interface that is tailored for touch-centric hardware.

But, this new look and running on different hardware with no backwards compatibility may not bode well with millions of existing Windows apps, wrote Business Insider. According to Business Insider report, Windows 8 will now run on a bunch of different hardware, such as traditional Intel x86 chips, new Intel systems-on-a-chip, and at least four different flavors of ARM. That means programming separately for each of these platforms is going to be complicated because it would require developers to recompile their code for each platform, and perhaps rewrite portions that don't work, wrote Business Insider.

HTML5 and Javascript are web standards, and are built to be cross-platform. From Visual Basic to .NET and Silverlight, Microsoft developers have been following Microsoft’s multiple platforms for years now. According to Peter Bright of Ars Technica, Microsoft seems to be telling them “forget all that time you've invested – if you want to write apps for the most advanced version of Windows, just write web apps,” wrote Business Insider.

As Business Insider reporter Matt Rosoff put it, “That not only makes their past experience less useful, but also opens development to an army of web-focused developers who have never been particularly interested in Microsoft. Suddenly all these young hotshot web jockeys will be able to write competitive Windows programs? That's a lot to bear for the guy who spent a decade perfecting C#.”

In analyst Rob Sanfilippo’s opinion if Microsoft says that it requires lot of work to get apps running on tablets, it will lose developers to other platforms, particularly Apple’s iOS platform, as per the Business Insider report.

In summary, the new features highlighted include fast launching of apps from a tile-based start screen, which replaces the Windows start menu with a customizable, scalable full-screen view of apps, live tiles with notifications, showing always up-to-date information from your apps, fluid, natural switching between running apps, and convenient ability to snap and resize an app to the side of the screen. Additionally, it also offers web-connected and web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript that have access to the full power of the PC, and fully touch-optimized browsing, with all the power of hardware-accelerated Internet Explorer 10.

More details on Windows 8 will be revealed at the upcoming event BUILD, Sept. 13-16, in Anaheim, Calif., Microsoft said.

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Ashok Bindra is a veteran writer and editor with more than 25 years of editorial experience covering RF/wireless technologies, semiconductors and power electronics. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell