Microsoft’s Zen Lesson: Windows 8 Hardware Squeezes

Occasionally, Microsoft learns lessons deeply– and more deeply than they’ll let on. I think you’ll see proof of this in Windows 8, as Microsoft starts to slim down its hardware compatibility list to enjoy some of the benefits caused by simplicity, cited as a benefit that Apple now enjoys. Simplicity is bliss, and Zen is all about simplicity (and a predictable consumer experience). The first place that constraints might occur is in the quality of tablet platforms. It’s causing ruffles through the computer hardware-making industry. Microsoft is known for an attitude of encompassing a wide variety of hardware combinations. Nobody argues that Windows sells hardware. But should Microsoft apply the same Zen to Windows 8 requirements? Certainly the Windows Vista hardware support debacle left many soured sentiments in HardwareVille. Will we mind if Microsoft raises the bar for Windows 8 hardware? Numerically, the amount of supported platforms that Windows supports is huge, and when one starts to add peripherals, the strata becomes an enormous quality assurance program. Something seemingly simple, like USB, now becomes a question of powered versus non-powered USB, the speeds and negotiations associated with matching drivers for USB 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and now 3.0, adjusting data rates for each of these, all while managing whatever else was going on in a system when the USB device was inserted into its jack. Multiply this times many other supported interfaces, motherboard chipsets, CPUs with varying features and clocks, and one is reminded of Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. We’ve been trained recently to groan when a new version of Windows is imminent, but Windows 7 seemed to teach Microsoft’s customers that Microsoft can still render up perceived value in a new Windows edition. It wasn’t too awful, and Windows 7 seems to enjoy a greater immunity from malware- while delivering strong performance. Windows 8 will be more interesting still, I’m betting. Hardware companies have traditionally followed lockstep behind Microsoft because it gives them business. Known as OEMs, vendors like HP, Dell, Lenovo, and others sell lots of Windows, whether in desktop, server, or other operating systems license types. Until recently, the alternatives to Windows haven’t been viable for a number of reasons, but that’s changing, and for those reasons, Windows 8 is unlikely to be similar to historical Windows versions. It’s time to tighten up. The enterprise issue is one of enabling users, while maintaining productivity and availability for applications. One of the Achille’s Heels of Microsoft’s Windows progressive implementations has been accommodating unbelievable diversity and legacy hardware. This means that the list of supported hardware has grown almost geometrically. It’s great to have compatibility, but the burden has become huge for Microsoft. A dozen years ago, Microsoft first imposed some discipline on its OEMs by pushing a specification known as the MultiMedia II spec, which specified a minimum amount of hardware needed to run Windows. In those days, this included the requirement for a CD-ROM drive. OEMs rebelled, and those that built systems by “hand”, were upset. Microsoft tried to corral its diversity and driver program by publishing something called the Hardware Compatibility List/HCL, which was a way to drive OEMs towards using Microsoft’s specs and certification programs. The benefit would be comparative assurance that if you bought a peripheral, it would work with Windows. It became a monstrous battle. Microsoft went further, by trying to get vendors to implement authenticated, signed hardware drivers. This was a method where Microsoft could look at a driver, say it was ok, or otherwise warn a consumer that bad things might happen. OEM peripheral suppliers rebelled. They loathed paying the cost of new driver development, and the cost of Microsoft’s certification program. Bad things could happen either way, sadly, as keeping machines in software revision synchronization became an art, rather than a science. Nonetheless, Microsoft persisted in trying to find ways to keep OEMs, peripheral makers, and users happy in their hardware and peripheral ecosystems—loose as they were. Enter the rapid changes made in Windows XP SP2+, Vista, and Windows 7. The user role was demoted, and some software and driver combinations simply didn’t work or had odd problems. Users rebelled, but became safer from this change. Driver makers and OEMs were in re-write, however. Microsoft’s competitor, Apple, enjoyed near-perfect harmony in product compatibility– because they strictly controlled their hardware platform and peripheral vendors either dealt with Apple’s quirkiness or chose to remain incompatible with Apple. Eventually, either something you purchased worked on an Apple, or it didn’t. Exception handling problems spawned by strange combinations at Apple almost didn’t exist by comparison. Part of the benefit for Apple came from an expression of Zen, which is to simplify, and cut away pieces until simplification is manifest. This philosophy helped Apple grow and cut the “noise” associated with a seeming unending number of peripheral and chipset combinations that Windows ostensibly supported. Steve Jobs is purported to have told Nike execs the same recommendation: simplify. Reduction of the geometric growth in platform diversity can’t help but aid Windows users—if only to reduce the gigs of drivers and hardware detection routines dragged in with each new Windows edition. Windows 8, in at least tablet editions, is apparently going to run on a stratified set of platforms, on x86 and ARM processor platforms. Supporting two processor families isn’t new for Microsoft—it tried it unsuccessfully before with Windows NT4. That software will potentially have to be recompiled for the ARM family of machines is crux for other discussion. What is new is the dictum, railed about at CompuTex 2011 in Taipei that supported hardware platforms for Windows 8 will be highly confined. That, friends, is new.