Windows 8 Will Be ‘Completely Different’, Blog Reveals

Microsoft has offered up a teasing morsel for Windows 8, after a blog posting inadvertently revealed that the next operating system may take a radical turn in its user interface and features.

In a 31 January blog posting on the Microsoft Developer Network, entitled “What’s In Store for the Next Windows,” a project manager with “the Windows update team” suggests that development of Windows 8 is already well underway. That blog posting was subsequently taken down, but the cached version can be found here.

Although the poster never mentions their name in that posting, nor the two others linked to it, the URL for that particular MSDN blog features the name “Sharad.” The social-networking site LinkedIn lists one “Sharad Goel” as a program manager for “computer software” at Microsoft, based in the greater Seattle area.

When asked by eWEEK for confirmation of the blogger’s identity, a Microsoft spokesperson responded with: “Going by LinkedIn isn’t conclusive in this instance, as we also aren’t quite sure who this blogger is because there are multiple people at Microsoft with that name.”

The spokesperson also declined comment about any future editions of Windows.

“Folks started asking me what’s in Windows 8 – and the first thing I have to say is that I resonate [with] Steven Sinofsky’s interview on who said we’re calling it Windows 8?” reads the 31 January blog posting. “So how am I referring to the next version of Windows without saying that many words – well simple – Windows.next.”

The next version of Windows, according to the blogger, “will be something completely different from what folks usually expect of Windows – I am simply impressed with the process that Steven has set up to listen to our customers needs and wants and get a team together that can make it happen.”

Further details are not forthcoming, at least not in the 31 January post. “That’s about it for the time being – I know I’m not sharing much at this point but right now I can’t as we work towards finalising that vision.”