7 Technologies Poised for Failure in 2013

Call them the epic fails of technology. In 2013, a few technologies will fade into an abyss, swirling around and clinging for a last gasp of air before eventually dying. For IT executives looking to make contingency plans and approve budgets, these are the technologies to avoid.

Top network and IT industry stories of 2012

1. Legacy Applications
Report: Gartner Says SaaS Now Replacing, Extending Legacy Apps

That means not having to run-or maintain-legacy apps in a data center. While you might still depend on legacy apps, you won't run them the same way or manage them in your own data centers.

2. Mobile Applications
The brightest thinkers in technology have predicted the demise of apps for some time. Doug Pepper with InterWest Partners, venture capital firm, says apps will transform into intelligent agents that know about our preferences, location-even the time of day and our schedule.

Analysis: Mobile App Standoff: Web App vs. Native App

We won't need a weather app anymore, or even a widget. Instead, the phone will customize the home screen to feed only the data we need based on our own customizations. That means not having to manage hundreds of apps.

3. Traditional Desktops
This is an interesting paradigm shift that might require some adjustment in our thinking. Today, your desktop is the place you store apps and picture of your kids. Over the past few years, though, thin-computing devices such as the Google Chromebox have shown how old-fashioned a desktop is. (The Chromebox has only a browser. There is no desktop.)

News: Windows 8 Brings Zero 'Pop' to Consumer PC Sales

ScienceLogic's Piriano says the desktop will die in 2013 as more companies move to a virtual desktop in the cloud-benefiting from centralized control in the process.

4. BlackBerry Smartphones
Predications of the impending doom of the BlackBerry smartphone have swirled for more than a year. Constant delays in new operating system upgrades, misfires with tablets and new form-factors (anyone like a touchscreen phone with a thumbpad?) and management turnover are only part of the problem.

Analysis: New BlackBerry 10 Devices Impress, But Can They Save RIM?

The real issue: Employees want a consumer phone they can use at work. We're connected 24x7 now, so having a dedicate business phone that won't play Angry Birds doesn't make sense any more.

5. Windows Phones
Android and the iPhone have won, and in 2013, Microsoft will finally decide to give up on the Windows phone. As much as the platform matches up with Windows 8 and the Surface tablets, consumer interest is not nearly as fanatical. Analyst firm IDC expects Windows Phone to land an 11 percent market share by 2016, while Ovum suggests a 13 percent share by 2017, but there's little sign that Android and iPhone users are ready to switch.

Blog: Windows Phone to Pass BlackBerry, but Does It Matter?

Of the 40 people I met at a recent tech conference, a few had an Android, the rest had an iPhone, and not one person had a Windows phone. If early adopters skip the platform, who will stick around?

6. Private Branch Exchange (PBX) Systems
The desktop phone in your cubicle might be on its last leg. Adam Hartung with consultancy Spark Partners says the big technology fail of 2013 will be the traditional corporate PBX system-those desk phones that tie into a corporate data center.

Case Study: Implementing VoIP: Lessons Learned Killing PBX

The problem is that escalating costs and maintenance fees look less and less attractive to companies, especially when employees have started bringing their own gadgets to work and using them exclusively. "Employees are happy to bring their own phone," Hartung says. "Companies only need to know how to collect and manage the connections."

7. Fax Machines
The fax machine will finally sputter out and die next year, says Keval Desai, a partner at InterWest Partners. We all know faxing is a sign of another age when our data flowed over standard phone lines. New services such as Adobe EchoSign offer a way for lawyers, insurance agents and your real estate agent to obtain a verifiable digital signature and transmit legal contracts with full authentication.
Related: Fax Machine Among Obsolete Technology to Kill-in 2010

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Microsoft opens own social network, Socl

Microsoft Thursday unveiled Socl, a social network that combines the graphics-heavy interface of Pinterest with Bing search functionality.

Does the world really need another social network?

Microsoft thinks so. The company on Wednesday opened up registration for its new project, the aptly named Socl, to users with Microsoft and Facebook accounts. Socl launched last year but was in beta for Microsoft employees and college students until Wednesday.

#DroidRage stunt brings Microsoft a world of hurt

Socl isn't exactly a traditional social network. It's more like Pinterest than Facebook as its landing page is filled with photo collages. (This is a change; the site's original design was decidedly less image-heavy.) Socl was born from Microsoft Research FUSE Labs' research into social search for students.

Now, anyone can sign up for the site and find content either generated randomly on Socl's homepage or do a Bing-powered search by topic. To create a post, you can pull content from other parts of the Web--photos, videos, links, etc.--and the site puts together a collage for you.

You can "riff" or comment on others' posts and share related links and images. Your profile page is a gallery of the posts you've created and the interests and people you follow--no wall posts or 140-character bon mots here.

The emphasis is less on friends than content. If you sign in using your Facebook login information, Socl will find your Facebook friends, but the site encourages you to explore and connect with others based on common interests and posts you like.

Facebook competitor?

Some in the blogosphere have questioned whether Microsoft is trying to compete with Facebook, but Socl isn't much like Facebook at all. Like Pinterest, Microsoft's new network seems like a solid way to waste a few hours browsing random photos and links rather than a tool to communicate with friends.

And Microsoft acknowledges Socl's limitations. On the site's About page, the company says Socl is not designed to compete with the established social networks, but is instead an "experimental research project with a minimal set of features."

Microsoft is attempting to create a unified, cross-platform ecosystem that extends across hardware (its Surface tablets) and software (Windows 8) to search engines (Bing) and, now, its own social network. The company is experimenting with viral ad campaigns and Twitter stunts.

But, the question remains: Can the company shed its old-fashioned image and enter a new era in technology governed by touch and social? That answer could hinge on Socl's success.

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Windows 8 sales hit 40 million in first month

Hundreds of millions of computers remain on earlier Windows operating systems

Microsoft has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses since Oct. 26 when the new operating system became available.

That includes all sales, corporate and consumer, although the company provided no breakdown for how many of each there were.

That’s up just about exactly tenfold from the first four days of the operating system’s availability when CEO Steve Ballmer announced the figure at the company’s developers conference.

RELATED: Microsoft greases the skids for Windows 8 developers

Ballmer said back in October that there are 670 million Windows 7 licenses that could be upgraded to Windows 8, plus the expected sale of 400 million new devices that he projects will be sold running Windows 8.

The sales numbers were issued by Tami Reller, corporate vice president and CFO of Windows, at the annual Credit Suisse technology conference Tuesday.

Reller also says the number of applications available for sale in the Windows Store has doubled since the Windows 8 launch from about 10,000 to about 20,000. Apps she highlighted among the new ones included CBS, ABC News, ABC Family, Engadget, Flixster, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), Vimeo – none of which is a business productivity app.

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Microsoft reportedly allows pirates to activate unlicensed installations of Windows 8 Pro

Windows 8 Pro pirates can install free Windows 8 Media Center pack from Microsoft to permanently activate their installations, users report

Users running pirated copies of Windows 8 Pro can reportedly upgrade to a fully licensed and permanently activated version of the OS by simply installing a free Windows 8 Media Center upgrade offered by Microsoft.

Can you navigate Windows 8?

The relatively simple technique that essentially allows users to get Windows 8 Pro for free was described late Tuesday on Reddit by a user named "noveleven" who claims to have successfully tried it out. At least one other Reddit user confirmed that it works in the same discussion thread.

Microsoft currently allows Windows 8 Pro users to gain the Windows Media Center (WMC) feature set for free by downloading and installing a Windows 8 Media Center pack from its website. This offer was launched on Oct. 26 and is scheduled to run until Jan. 13, 2013.

Users only have to register with a valid email address and they will receive a valid product key which they can use during the upgrade.

However, the problem is that the upgrade process doesn't check if the existing product key is valid or not, as long as the system appears to be activated, noveleven said.

Users who install Windows 8 Pro without paying for a license currently activate their systems by using rogue KMS (Key Management Service) servers that accept any product key as valid.

KMS was designed to allow enterprises with a Microsoft volume license agreement to activate new Windows installations using a server located on their internal network.

KMS-based activation is temporary and has to be renewed every 180 days. However, it seems that after applying the free WMC upgrade and using the unique product key supplied by Microsoft, the temporary KMS activation, whether legitimate or rogue, becomes permanent.

"When you activate Windows via KMS, in the activation window it says 'Windows is activated until...' and a date (so if you were to install it today, it would say it's activated until May)," noveleven said in the Reddit thread. "After installing the upgrade, the window just says 'Windows was activated on...' and the date of activation. That means the activation is permanent."

Noveleven did not give instructions on how to obtain a pirated copy of Windows 8 and activate it using a rogue KMS server in detail. However, this information can easily be found on various Internet forums.

On one particular forum, users have been discussing the permanent WMC-upgrade-based activation technique described by Noveleven since Oct. 28, two days after Microsoft started offering the Windows 8 Media Center pack for free.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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How Big Data Will Separate Haves From Have-Nots

When the Internet and the World Wide Web first gained momentum in the 1990s, words such as email and ecommerce entered the popular lexicon. (In fact, a lowercase "e" became a symbol of all things electronic.) The dot-com boom and bust cycle played out in what has since come to be known as Internet time. Entire industries were created and decimated in the span of a decade. Today, it's hard to imagine either a business or personal life without the Internet and the Web.

Top 5 ciities for Big Data jobs

Tips: 4 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Big Data Initiative

We are now arguably entering a similar historical inflection point with big data, according to Dun & Bradstreet CIO Walt Hauck. He should know. For 170 years, data has been D&B's business. Now Hauck controls how the company gains competitive advantage by wielding this asset.

Big Data Will Help You Understand Your Customers

According to Hauck, the companies that "get" big data and use it to better serve their customers will be the "haves." Those that don't might as well open a corner bookstore.

Dun & Bradstreet CIO Walt Hauck

"I think big data is the beginning of the 'haves' and 'have-nots', Hauck says. "You're either going to be able to take your data, manipulate it and understand it at scale, or you're going to follow those that do."

How-To: Use Big Data to Stop Customer Churn

Hauck isn't talking about the data that comes from Twitter feeds and Facebook "likes." That's interesting and grabs headlines, but the real value in big data is better understanding what you already know:

Why do your customers do what they do?
What is it about your products or services that resonates with your customers?
What do your customers need-and need more of?
How are you going to use what you know about your customers to do what you do better, attract new clients, open new markets and so on?

"How many times do companies build products that don't change the market in any fundamental way?" Hauck asks. The promise of big data, he adds, is avoiding such scenarios. It won't come easily.

"You're going to get a much tighter feedback loop. Your data is going to double next year and double again in six months after that," Hauck says. You can ignore that information and just guess, he continues, or you can analyze the data, test a hypothesis and see what works. "In the broader world, we are awash in data but bereft of insight. I think our value prop is around creating more and more insight."

CRM is the classic example of this, Hauck says. CRM data is all over the place, and sometimes it's corrupted. The challenge is getting all that information normalized and into a model that gives you a good idea of a customer's propensity to spend. From there, you have to manage that model against what actually happens and fine-tune it. Being able to look across all your data sets to find these answers is one of the promises that big data technology brings to the table.

Analysis: Five Things CIOs Should Know About Big Data

Most people talk about applying big data principles to Internet data, crowdsourcing and sentiment analysis, but Hauck says Dun & Bradstreet gets a lot of value from looking at internal systems in new ways.

"We look through our products to see what people are using. We're promoting features in products in ways we haven't before, and we're taking features out of products based on usage," he says, adding that this provides value related to upselling, cross-selling and point-of-sale decision-making.

Librarians, Data Scientists and Master Data Management

Before you can obtain these insights, though, you have to roll up your sleeves and finally implement those massive master data management projects that have been sitting on the back burning, waiting for a strong business case.

Big data could just be it. Unfortunately, there's a dual challenge here. "Good librarianism," to use Hauck's lingo, and big data share a lack of critical talent.

"The biggest challenge for me is getting people who are competent in using this stuff at scale," Hauck says. "Everyone can build a 100-by-100 cube with this stuff. The guys that have done a billion-table join? Not as many. You can try to rent the technical skills, but, unless they understand the context of your business, it just takes a couple of years to build up the chops to use this stuff."

Fortunately, the barrier to entry is low from a technical and cost standpoint, and companies such as Cloudera are bringing big data technologies in reach for the smallest of businesses. However, you still need the in-house expertise to make sense of the all the numbers. You can put all these numbers from all over the place into a blender and get an answer, but it will be meaningless if you don't understand the question you're trying to answer.

"Maybe downstream you need some analytics, [but] at the front it's really hard to get all your data out of your SAP system [and] into a Hive," Hauck says. "That doesn't come for free, and that doesn't come without expertise."

Big Data's Customer Service Imperative

Such problems aside, ignore big data at your peril, Hauck cautions. The companies that "get it," and understand that it's about managing expectations as much as information, will benefit.

Think about your own interactions with the companies you work with. If it takes days (instead of seconds) to update your records, or if the customer service representative can't see a list of service calls and outcomes on her display and react accordingly, you are going to feel like the company is inept, incompetent or, worst of all, doesn't care about you as a customer.

How-To: Big Data Analytics Gold for the Call Center

Big data will put the expectation of instantaneous feedback and reaction into hyper-drive. Those that embrace this change, and the velocity of it, will be the winners. "Amazon is the exception to the rule today," Hauck says, but we're not far from companies being described as "slow" and "dumb" if they aren't monitoring customers in real time.

"A few years from now, someone's going to say 'You didn't change your application based on what I did a minute ago? Don't you care about me?'" he suggests. "It's going to separate the 'haves' and the 'have-nots,' much like...brick-and-mortar vs. Internet shops. Big data is going to create that kind of divide."

It appears that most enterprises planning to avoid this fate. Prior to his conversation with CIO.com, Hauck walked out of a meeting of Fortune 500 CIOs. "It's on everyone's mind," he says. "Part of the struggle in today's business economic environment is [wondering if]can people squirrel away enough resources to take a swing at it?"

Time will tell, of course. You can always swing and miss, as some surely will, just as some unexpected winners will come out of nowhere to claim victory and play spoiler.

Either way, big data is here to stay. It's more than just a buzzword or a hype-cycle, Hauck concludes-it's going to separate the customer-centric companies from those that simply act as commodity sellers. "It's about what you do with [the data], how are you going to do real-time offering, how are you going to do processing, how you stand against your competition. People who can leverage that...are going to win."

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SmartGlass: Microsoft's secret weapon in the battle for the living room

Analysis Why SmartGlass is Microsoft's killer app

The launch of Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system was an unprecedented moment for the industry giant.

It is, after all, the first major version of Windows to be built from the ground up with smartphones and tablets in mind rather than being PC-centric.

What's more, it was accompanied by the launch of Microsoft's new Surface tablet, marking a historic new appetite within Redmond to take the fight to Apple on the hardware front.

It also coincided with the quiet release of Microsoft's SmartGlass app. Inevitably the bulk of the media attention has been focused on Windows 8 and its flagship hardware, but SmartGlass is equally as important to the company's plans. This is Microsoft's killer app, and it could be pivotal.

Back in 1980, Bill Gates stated that Microsoft's ultimate goal was "a computer on every desk and in every home". At the time this was considered rather farfetched, but three decades on it almost seems conservative.

Having long since achieved this original ambition, Microsoft started looking for ways to expand its presence in our lives.
Enter, Xbox

There's little doubt that the launch of the original Xbox console back in 2001 was part of a long term strategy to gain a foothold in the living room and help Microsoft become an arbiter of our digital leisure time in the same way it had become an ubiquitous part of our working lives.

Of course, Microsoft denied this at the time as it sought to gain credibility with the gaming press and establish itself in the market as a pure games company. However, once it launched the Xbox 360 and began to overturn the dominance of the PlayStation brand, the façade started to slip and more and more media services were added to Xbox Live.

Today Microsoft earns more revenue from TV, movies and music on the Xbox 360 than it does from games and there is no longer any ambiguity about the company's intentions. Microsoft wants to own the living room.

However, as this strategy has been unfolding, the ground has been shifting beneath Microsoft's feet. A resurgent Apple charted a different course for digital entertainment with the iPod, iPhone and iPad and in the process opened up a whole new world of computing on the go to ensure we are connected to our media everywhere and always.

Microsoft knows it is lagging behind in the new world of smartphones and tablets, and it's banking on SmartGlass to help it catch up, and ultimately, to lead in the battle for the living room.
The Xbox advantage

The Xbox brand is a key advantage in Microsoft's arsenal. There are 70 million Xbox 360s sitting under televisions across the world, most of which are connected to Xbox Live and able to stream on-demand television, movies, music and of course games to their owners TV screens.

With SmartGlass that same content can now be seamlessly served out to existing tablets and smartphones, including iOS devices. SmartGlass also augments television media with second-screen functionality such as displaying information about the cast in a movie you are watching or allowing you to bet on live sports, but only if you are watching them through your Xbox.

Shortly before the launch of Windows 8 and Surface, Microsoft highlighted the evolution of Xbox from a device to an entertainment service, with Yusuf Mehdi, chief marketing officer for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Division confidently stating that "Xbox will be a gateway to the best in movies, TV shows, music, sports, your favourite games and instant access to your friends, wherever you are".

SmartGlass is a key component in this evolution, because it's through SmartGlass that the Xbox is able to become the "gateway" to your media that Mehdi is describing.

Microsoft knows that most of us own iOS or Android powered tablets and phones, but SmartGlass allows its Xbox entertainment ecosystem to bleed out onto these devices.

Microsoft doesn't mind if you're watching movies on your new iPad as long as they were purchased through Xbox. In addition, it's betting that the more deeply you are drawn into Xbox entertainment services presented through a Windows 8 interface on your TV, the more likely you are to embrace Windows 8 powered tablets and phones with your next upgrade.

However, there are still some kinks to iron out. The aging Xbox 360 hardware isn't quite the ideal central hub for all your entertainment needs. It's not practical (or economical) to leave the device running, which creates an instant barrier between you and your media, and it wasn't designed to multitask in the way that modern users expect.

Conveniently, hardcore gamers are also hungry for an upgrade, as the performance of games on the system has now fallen far behind that available on a modern PC.
Xbox 720

So, in 2013 Microsoft will launch a next generation Xbox console which supports an always-on power state and carries a chipset designed to enable concurrent apps.

The company knows that hardcore gamers will drive early adoption, but mass market penetration must follow quickly if its strategy is to succeed. In order to achieve this, Microsoft will begin to position itself more as a service provider like Sky than as a traditional console manufacturer.

Indeed, Microsoft has already been trialing this model with Xbox 360, which you can now purchase through selected retailers in the US for just $99 if you also sign up to a two-year Xbox Live subscription. This move is clearly in anticipation of a full transition to service provider when the new Xbox launches.

Bill Gate's was serious about his company's lofty goal back in 1980, and today Microsoft is serious about its new ambition to own the living room and become the de facto provider of our digital entertainment.

To achieve this objective, the Redmond giant is attacking on all fronts. Surface and its successors will answer the demand for sleek, innovative hardware that Apple has created in the market place, Windows 8 is ready to run on the full array of devices we now have in our lives, and Xbox will serve up all the entertainment and content we need via a seamless, SmartGlass-powered medium.

But is this strategy too convoluted? If one piece of the puzzle fails to fall into place, will the whole house of cards come tumbling down? This is the beginning of a fascinating new era in the history of Microsoft.

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Microsoft Build: Wooing Windows 8 developers

At the company's much-anticipated developer's conference, Microsoft works on expanding its universe of third-party apps.

At Microsoft's Build conference, held this week in Redmond, Wash., the software giant's main objective was to entice developers and programmers to go forth and create apps for the Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 ecosystem.

The company has apparently succeeded in wooing at least the Microsoft faithful, although there are questions about how many existing and new customers will ultimately jump to the dramatic revision of the company's flagship operating system.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off a variety of devices running Windows 8, from a tiny 10-in. touchable tablet to a huge 82-in. Perceptive Pixel touch-enabled display. Along with those devices came the showcase of the Windows 8 software itself as Ballmer demonstrated how Microsoft's services make transporting settings, data and personalizations across a user's tablet, desktop PC and phone appear to be transparent.

Along with this transformation comes the necessity of encouraging and kindling an ecosystem of apps and value-added services from those outside of Microsoft. As the company wrote in its recent 10K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, "The strategic importance of a vibrant ecosystem increases as we launch the Windows 8 operating system, Surface devices, and associated cloud-based services."

Crystallizing the opportunity
During his keynote presentation on the first day of the conference, Ballmer outlined the number of potential users and devices that developers can target. According to Ballmer, there are 670 million Windows 7 users potentially upgrading to Windows 8, and 400 million new unique devices these customers have that can take advantage of at least some of the new features and the environment in Windows 8.

Ballmer also showcased the large marketing investment Microsoft is making to raise the awareness of Windows in the marketplace. "You won't be able to turn on a TV or open a magazine without seeing a Microsoft Windows ad," Ballmer said Tuesday.
How early Windows 8 sales figures compare

Microsoft reported that in the period from Friday, October 26, the first day that Windows 8 was available for purchase by consumers, to the morning of Tuesday, October 29, the company sold to end users at least 4 million licenses of Windows 8. It sounds like a big number, and it is, but around the time Apple's revised operating system OS X Mountain Lion was released, that company sold 3 million licenses in the same amount of time.

Given Apple's much smaller installed base, the percentage of Apple users immediately updating to the new operating system as compared with Windows users upgrading as soon as the product was available is much higher -- a data point that causes some to question whether Windows 8 will meet the same success that Microsoft has grown accustomed to. Others say it is the law of large numbers at work; with an installed base as large as Windows enjoys, it will necessarily take longer for the percentages to match.

Some developers see the release and general availability of Windows 8 as a catalyst for examining different tablet solutions. "We've now got to a point where businesses can start looking at the opportunities of Windows tablets properly," said Matt Baxter-Reynolds, an independent software development consultant and author of Programming Windows 8 Apps with C# (O'Reilly, 2012).

"Enterprises need to start evaluating Windows 8 in mobile scenarios today to understand what, if anything, they can take advantage of there. Enterprises are being pushed to deliver tablet solutions, and now there is an alternative to simply choosing the iPad," Baxter-Reynolds said.

Microsoft made its first tablet PC specification available in 2001 -- and this specification was adopted by other manufacturers beginning in 2002 -- it was always considered a standard PC, with no special interface or applications other than simple ink and electronic pen support. Windows 8 provides, for the first time in Microsoft's history, a specialized environment specifically meant for consumption on touch-sensitive tablet form factors.

Shane Milton, founder of the IndyALT.NET group in Indianapolis, Indiana, noted the new attention Microsoft is giving to these devices. "Microsoft seems like they really mean business backing this new hybrid tablet form factor, and they're really onto something," Milton said.

Other developers said they believe the new hardware devices entering the market will stoke demand on their own. "Sexy hardware choices, like the Surface, will lure consumers [to Windows 8]," said Samidip Basu, manager of Microsoft mobility solutions for Sogeti USA, in Columbus, Ohio. Besides devices, the new Microsoft interface that runs Windows 8 Store apps -- what the company previously termed Metro apps -- is seen by some developers as breakthrough.

"Edge to edge, every pixel of Windows 8 apps is for us to shine," Basu comments. "Many developers are digging the immersive user experience offered through content over chrome," referring to Windows 8's design predisposition to display app and user content rather than rely on menu bars, toolbars and other application interface-related elements.


Some dangers to consider
There is, however, caution warranted. "It's important that developers look carefully at how their development strategy is converging (or not) on delivering for Windows tablets, or iPad," said Baxter-Reynolds. "We're no longer in a world where betting everything on Microsoft is a good idea. Individual developers and their sponsoring organizations need to take a holistic view of which technologies, techniques and processes they are using to deliver."

Another obstacle is the infancy of the Windows Store, Microsoft's answer to iTunes and the iOS App Store on the Apple platform. Just days after Windows 8's launch, the Windows Store had 11,226 apps, according to Wes Miller, a research vice president at Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland, Wash., and operator of WinAppUpdate.com, a website dedicated to tracking statistics about the number of type of apps for Windows 8.

Windows 8
Meanwhile, Apple and Google report about 700,000 apps each in their mobile stores, with Apple specifying recently that about 275,000 apps are designed specifically to work with its iPad tablet.

Developers interested in writing Windows 8 applications might also need to work on them on their own time, at least at first. "Enterprises may be sluggish to take up Windows 8 development," says Basu. "So expect to do this outside of your day job, unless things work out with your client."

Still, Basu said he remains optimistic about what Microsoft is offering with Windows 8. "The one ecosystem with the Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Xbox -- it only seems natural," he says.

Windows Phone 8 and its impact
Also less clear is the impact Windows Phone 8, Microsoft's latest effort to catch up with its rivals in the smartphone marketplace, will have on the company's fortunes.

As of August, the research firm Canalys reported that Windows Phone made up 3.2% of the worldwide smartphone market in the second quarter of 2012 -- and this was a healthy increase, percentage-wise, over previous reports.

Even Ballmer himself admitted to less than stellar momentum on this front. "Windows Phone is a small-volume player," Ballmer said in Tuesday's keynote. But the company is clearly hoping that the entry of new Windows Phone 8-based handsets from HTC, Samsung and Nokia, as well as the common code base that both the smartphone and the main PC operating system share, will fuel demand.

"If you want the best experience with your new Windows computer, you will own a Windows Phone. If you want the experience that is the most personal, you'll buy a Windows Phone," said Ballmer.

Decision time for developers
Some developers are keenly aware of the new opportunities Windows 8's release is bringing. David Shadle, a user experience designer and developer and former Microsoft employee, has been working on an app idea for a while, but put the effort on hold because of time constraints.

"With the launch of Windows 8, I have become very inspired at the opportunity to reignite this effort," Shadle said. "The design principles that Microsoft have put into place align well with the experience that I have been experimenting with. I am excited at the opportunity to build the application once and have it appear across multiple screens, which I always considered but was intimidated at the task."

Milton said he is currently writing a Windows 8 app and that what he learned at the conference was a key influence in his decision. The sheer numbers, he says, are reason enough. "[You] can't argue with the fact that if Windows 8 fails as badly as Vista, that's still 70 million customers," Milton said. But "it won't" fail, he said, being as confident as others here about the eventual success of the Windows 8 operating system in the marketplace.

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