No similar inspiration exists in Microsoft's Modern-style apps--some of which lack basic functionality when matched against their desktop counterparts. The Mail app, for instance, doesn't support POP email accounts. The Reader app doesn't support PDF editing, and Calendar doesn't support event invitations or task management. Even the ballyhooed Skype for Windows 8 lacks some features that the desktop version offers, such as screen sharing, file transfer, and group video calling. And of course, Microsoft hasn't yet released a Modern-style version of Office, choosing instead to try to shoehorn some touch-friendly features into Office 2013.
"I have to conclude that developing apps for Windows 8 is hard," Cherry said, "and the reason I get to that conclusion is...can you name one app from Microsoft that's good, or full-featured? So if they can't do it, how does an independent developer stand a chance of doing it well?"
Windows 9 will also have to combine the Windows Phone and Windows ecosystems. Doing so would mean less work for developers (though porting from one platform to the other is fairly easy, says Microsoft), and it would signal to consumers that Microsoft was offering a greater ecosystem worth investing in.
If I knew that I could play a Windows Phone game on a Windows PC and even on an Xbox 360 at no extra charge, I would be a lot more likely to buy the game. Apple and Google combined their phone and tablet platforms from the start. While Microsoft has done a lot to unify its phone and PC software with features such as SkyDrive integration and Xbox Music, those efforts only touch the surface of what is possible.
Postscript: The ugly truth for PC veterans
Much of our discussion of Windows 9 has accepted the twin premises of marginalizing the desktop and pushing the new Modern interface. We're just being realistic. Microsoft clearly sees its future in the new interface, where it has greater control over the apps and Web services that people use. Though longtime PC users might find comfort in imagining a future where desktops get their own version of Windows, untainted by the Modern-style interface, in real life that ship has most likely sailed.
