Ambition
There's a lot to get through in this particular review - two unique operating systems, you might say - but before we dig in to the Modern UI, the apps, the desktop and more, it's worth reiterating that Windows 8 is arguably Microsoft's most ambitious release to date.
Sporting a Modern UI (formerly codenamed Metro), this is the new face of Microsoft as a company. The same design philosophy already exists on Windows smartphones and the company's own Xbox 360 games console, but in extending the Modern UI to Windows, Microsoft is bringing its reimagined and reinvented interface to not tens of millions of customers, but hundreds of millions.
In the Microsoft ecosystem, TVs, desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones are all destined to carry this new look. But it's more than that, for users of any previous Windows operating system, Windows 8 doesn't just look different, it performs differently, too. It requires new ways of thinking, it's designed to work with forward-looking devices, and it functions best when connected to the cloud. It's a huge gamble as these changes represent a steep learning curve, but there's no turning back; this is the future of Microsoft, for better or for worse.
In the next part of our review, we'll be examining the pros and cons of the Modern UI.
