With Windows 8, Microsoft is steering its operating system into a radically different direction. In the last ten years we've seen a shift from desktop PCs to notebooks, and now some are prophesising the end of the PC era as smartphones and tablets are becoming increasingly commonplace. While Microsoft is the dominant player in the x86 operating system market, the software giant has had little success with smartphone and tablet products, these markets are largely dominated by Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems. With its back against the wall, Microsoft decided to make a major gamble by making massive changes to the user interface of Windows 8 to make it more usable on touch-based mobile devices.
