> In the post PC era, Microsoft is betting the company on Windows 8, desperately trying to serve two masters with one operating system.
They could be onto something here, but it will only pan out if Microsoft can execute it properly.
Instead of thinking of it as "serving two masters," think of it as treating all HID paradigms as first class. You have one device that can hold all of your data and can adapt to either a tablet or a workstation input mode.
Basically, it's the OQO with an iPad form factor.
This could be just as "Post PC" as anything else claiming the moniker. Instead of all computing being embodied in a PC, the PC/workstation just becomes one of many input form factors. Whether or not this will fly will depend on how well Microsoft and partners can achieve the same sort of vertical integration that Apple has. (It will also depend on how well Google can develop the same and how well Apple can maintain theirs.)
If you'd like to hear Tim Cook's take on what Apple think, see his interview from D10, where he talks specifically about this, and why Apple thinks keeping iOS and OS X separate makes more sense than combining them.
TLDR: A legacy OS (OS X) has to much "Old stuff" that would hold back an iOS device (iPad) because it would be too clunky.
There is no reason they could not have a single kernel and system api with a different version of explorer and windowing manager for the tablet and PC versions. They could have easily have blended their entire stack into one OS with different skins over the top, but they are just trying to cram them into one mess.
They could be onto something here, but it will only pan out if Microsoft can execute it properly.
Instead of thinking of it as "serving two masters," think of it as treating all HID paradigms as first class. You have one device that can hold all of your data and can adapt to either a tablet or a workstation input mode.
Basically, it's the OQO with an iPad form factor.
This could be just as "Post PC" as anything else claiming the moniker. Instead of all computing being embodied in a PC, the PC/workstation just becomes one of many input form factors. Whether or not this will fly will depend on how well Microsoft and partners can achieve the same sort of vertical integration that Apple has. (It will also depend on how well Google can develop the same and how well Apple can maintain theirs.)