Microsoft Corp Windows President Steven Sinofsky previewed a touch-screen version of the operating system that can work on tablets, offering a glimpse of his company’s response to Apple Inc’s iPad.
Windows 8 resembles Microsoft’s software for mobile phones and uses “tiles,” rather than icons, to help users navigate between applications, Sinofsky said at AllThingsD’s D9 Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Microsoft demonstrated Windows 8 on a 10.6-inch touch-screen tablet and said the operating system can also work on desktop computers.
Microsoft, the world’s biggest software maker, is rushing to adapt Windows so it can run on devices that compete with the iPad, which dominates the tablet market. The new operating system won’t be out until next year, people familiar with the plans said in March. Still, the company is eager to show it’s making progress in developing software that can be used by computer makers and chip suppliers.
“What we set out to do with Windows 8 was really try to reimagine what we could do with a PC,” Sinofsky said. “You could sort of say we colored outside the lines.”
He declined to say when the software would be available, except to note it “won’t be this fall.” Sinofsky said the company would provide additional information on the product at a developer conference later this year.
Microsoft also previewed Windows 8 to customers, partners and media at the Computex show in Taipei. Vice President Mike Angiulo ran the system on tablets, notebooks and desktops made by Dell Inc, Asustek Computer Inc, and Quanta Computer Inc using chips and technology from ARM Holdings Plc, Qualcomm Inc, Texas Instruments Inc and Nvidia Corp.
