Microsoft is yet to announce the release date of its still-in- development operating system, Windows 8. But, during a preview earlier this year, the company revealed plans that it hopes will help it gain and keep the business tablet market.

Tablets, made popular by the category leader iPad, have changed the way many consume content. Books, movies, music - and not just entertainment - PDF files, spreadsheets, email and more, became immediately available in the palm of your hands, thanks to tablets.

Inspired by the tablet revolution and the rise of other touch-based devices like the popular, if not successful, Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has developed a cross-platform OS with touch in mind for all devices. Instead of having to learn a new OS or work with different operating systems for your PC, tablet and phone, Windows 8 offers one OS for all devices.

On the PC, Windows 8 issues a death certificate to the traditional Windows Start Button in favour of live tiles, inspired by Windows Phone 7. Instead, live tiles ‹ updated with content from the app the tile represents ‹ replace the now-antiquated start menu. This has been ripped directly from WP7, which some would argue was ripped from iPhone.

The release of Windows 8 is expected to bring new gestures for both fingers and styli for input on touch surfaces. All-in-one PC's like the HP TouchSmart will get a big boost from that kind of technology. Microsoft software like Office and Internet Explorer will be re-crafted to truly exploit the OS, including support for full-screen viewing. The entire OS is optimised for touch from start, but still works with a keyboard and mouse.

Once released, Windows 8 should be backwards compatible; that is software for Windows 7 should still function. But new software will be decidedly different. Developers can write software in HTML5 or Java, which should open up the OS to a slew of new applications and widgets that are both web-connected and web-powered.

And, Microsoft is expected to continue the new trend of having their latest OS actually needing less, rather than more, resources to install and run. Features like that will speed up its adoption among Windows users burned by previous upgrades that bogged down their hardware with bloated software.

Windows 8 will finally bring Microsoft to the tablet table. But getting a space to sit, with Apple iOS, Android and even WebOS already feeding away at the market, will be a challenge, even with the sexy cross platform strategy. By mid-September, we should have an idea of when 8 will be ready. until then, all I can say is, better late than never.

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