Microsoft Talks About the Team Building Windows 8

Microsoft just took the wraps off of its new developer blog, "Building Windows 8," which will serve as the Windows' team's outlet for sharing new features and innovations for the next big operating system.

Windows president Steven Sinofsky penned the blog post, where he recognized that Microsoft has been fairly hush-hush on Windows 8 thus far.

"We’ve heard people express frustration over how little we’ve communicated so far about Windows 8. We’ve certainly learned lessons over the years about the perils of talking about features before we have a solid understanding of our ability to execute," wrote Sinofsky.

Fortunately, there is now an official blog channel for Windows 8, which the development team hopes to use to reach all sorts of users and stakeholders of the next big version.

"We know people who care a lot about networking want to know our plans there. We know people who are invested heavily in storage want to know what is new in that area. Many want to know about performance and fundamentals. We know developers, IT pros, and gamers all want to know what's new for them." Sinofsky continued, "There is so much packed into Windows 8 and there are so many unique and important lenses through which to view Windows 8, and so we want to be sure to take the time to cover as many of these topics as possible, to build up a shared understanding of why we’ve taken Windows where we have. So in the next weeks we will just start talking specifics of features, since there is no obvious place to start given the varying perspectives. From fundamentals, to user interface, to hardware support, and more, if something is important to you, we promise we'll get to it in some form or another."

In a followup post, Sinofsky introduced the different teams that make up the entire Windows 8 crew. This will also serve as an official confirmation of the Windows 8 App Store.

• App Compatibility and Device Compatibility
• App Store
• Applications and Media Experience
• App Experience
• Core Experience Evolved
• Device Connectivity
• Devices & Networking Experience
• Ecosystem Fundamentals
• Engineer Desktop
• Engineering System
• Enterprise Networking
• Global Experience
• Graphics Platform
• Hardware Developer Experience
• Human Interaction Platform
• Hyper-V
• In Control of Your PC
• Kernel Platform
• Licensing and Deployment
• Media Platform
• Networking Core
• Performance
• Presentation and Composition
• Reliability, Security, and Privacy
• Runtime Experience
• Search, View, and Command
• Security & Identity
• Storage & Files Systems
• Sustained Engineering
• Telemetry
• User-Centered Experience
• Windows Online
• Windows Update
• Wireless and Networking services
• XAML

Maybe it was just the general consensus surrounding Windows Vista, but observing the developmental process for Windows 7 was quite enjoyable. Stay tuned as we keep track of the development of Windows 8.