Windows 8 shows Microsoft's big problem

We have seen the future, and for Windows, the future looks a lot like Windows Phone 7. Microsoft has let folks see glimpses of the not-yet-released version of Windows. Some have raved and others have yawned.

A long time ago, Windows was created with three goals in mind: provide a graphical interface for PCs, counter the threat from from the new Macintosh computer, and hide the command line interface from users.

Windows 8 continues those objectives. It provides a nice-looking interface, it counters the recent advances made by Apple, and once again it hides complexity from the user.

But Windows 8 is not Microsoft using the same strategy as Apple. For the iPods and iPhones, Apple created a new operating system, a new user interface, and a new way of computing. It made a clean break from the Mac OSX line. Microsoft, in contrast, is betting on backwards-compatibility, and Windows 8, with its shiny interface, can run older Windows programs.

Backwards compatibility is a blessing and a curse for Microsoft. It allows their customers to move gradually to the new operating system, keeping their existing applications. Yet it means that Microsoft must support a lot of complicated (and sometimes just plain wrong) APIs. (For example, the Windows Registry will be present in Windows 8, despite almost universal hatred of the thing. But too many programs depend on it, and Microsoft is stuck with it.)

Microsoft has trained customers to expect backwards compatibility.

Apple has trained its customers to expect new platforms. The history of Apple products in littered with abandoned platforms: Apple II DOS, the original Mac OS, the later Mac OS version 6 through 9, the Motorola processors, and the Power PC chips. When Apple introduced a new iOS operating system for the iPod and iPhone, no one blinked.

Microsoft could never get away with anything like that. The release of Windows Vista with its limited support for devices brought howls.

Microsoft's fate, like it or not, is tied to Windows. Which means that Microsoft must drag Windows to any market that it chooses to enter. The XBOX runs Windows, the Zune runs (OK, ran) Windows, the Media Center runs Windows... everything Microsoft does runs Windows.

Or to put it another way, Microsoft does everything with Windows. And the consequences of that are... Windows must be extended, stretched, folded, spindled, and mutilated into any new product.

Microsoft's growth is limited by its ability to expand Windows. And that is Microsoft's big problem.