It’s no secret that Windows 8 has been in development for quite some time: in fact, a new build surfaced on the Internet earlier today, and earlier this year Microsoft gave a big presentation on how Windows 8 will benefit new form factors. Yet, nothing beyond that was known, until today when Stephen Sinofsky himself, the man responsible for developing Windows 8, outlined the different teams responsible for creating the system.
Details on Windows 8’s development teams were revealed on a new blog regarding the development of Windows 8, entitled Building Windows 8. In the post, Sinofsky explained that although Windows is often seen as a single product, it’s developed by several separate teams:
It is tempting for some to think of Windows as one entity or group, or for some to think of Windows as just a set of specific people. […] When we started building Windows 8 we had a clear sense of the direction we were heading and so we built a team structure to support that direction.
Although not much is known about “the direction” Microsoft is heading, Sinofsky proceeded to outlining all the teams that are developing each of Windows 8’s components. Bored yet? Don’t be: the list of the teams actually managed to spill the beans on a feature that had long been rumored but Microsoft had always kept secret: an “app store”. Much like app stores on other platforms, such as iOS, OS X and Windows Phone 7, the Windows app store will presumably give users access to a whole slew of third-party software for Windows. While not much is known about the said store, since Microsoft hasn’t commented on it at all aside from mentioning that there’s a team working on its development, we suspect it’s part of the company’s strategy to make the next version of Windows work better on different form factors by making installing new applications easier than ever.
We’ll likely learn much more about the Windows 8 app store, along with the remainder of Windows 8’s feature set at Microsoft’s developer oriented BUILD conference, which is scheduled to take place from September 13th to the 16th. Windows 8 will have an attractive feature set, especially on emerging form factors such as tablets and other multi-touch devices. Microsoft went as far as calling Windows 8 one of the company’s riskiest product bet yet.
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