There’s a reason why Apple’s computers have become the runaway success that they are today. As the saying goes, their products ‘just work’. It can be argued that the hardware’s near mythic reliability comes from a combination of Cupertino’s bullet-proof industrial design and the elegant strength of the code used to create OS X. That said, Apple’s not the only one able to crank out a nice little bit of all right. Microsoft has earned their share of pain after inflicting gems like Windows ME, Microsoft Bob and Windows Vista on unsuspecting consumers, but from the look of things, Redmond’s days of flinging flaming electronic turds on the public may be coming to an end. While it ain’t OS X, the stability seen in Windows 7 shows that Microsoft’s software engineers are willing to learn from their mistakes, and Windows Phone 7 is surprisingly pleasurable to use. In June, Microsoft officially announced the existence of a new operating system currently under development. It’s named—you guessed it—Windows 8. From what we’ve seen it’s shaping up to be a pretty slick operator, but will it be able to go blow for blow with Lion in areas the areas of feature set and functionality? Based on what we know about Windows 8 so far, let’s take a look.
