Some concerns RE: Win8 being an embedded OS /and/ dev-env for target development.

It is concerning to hear of Microsoft's intention to have a single operating system for embedded devices and PCs.

If Windows 8 is geared towards being an embedded platform, how is it going to run Visual Studio and perform as a development environment on a PC?

Windows 8 is due 2013 by which point Android will be a very sound embedded OS. Microsoft has gone the wrong way – instead of trying to compete with a well established embedded device industry they should go after the enterprise needs. They should be going the route of IBM. We software engineers need a strong and functionally rich OS to code on. XP and Windows 7 do this well - we wouldn't consider another OS platform to code on. This is Microsoft's strength.

The light-weight efficiency requirements for embedded devices and the functional richness necessary for a development environment are mutually exclusive. This long term strategy of trying to please all people on all devices is going to compromise the quality of the OS. This is a bad long term strategy decision by Microsoft IMHO as nobody wants an embedded device too hot to touch and a battery life half that of the competition, but that's the only way a full blown OS is going to get on a tablet/mobile.

I highly doubt that's what they mean. More likely, they are shooting for a common base. Android is, after all, based on Linux.

Viggy

With windows 8, I think MS is trying to show it's customer's that they are also on the line of smart device industry.

Last year, Tablets sales was surprisingly shooted up giving a panic to all desktop manufacturers.

Dell who was into desktop has also entered Tablet with Dell streak.
Android is all what they can currently depend unless they take a bold decision like Nokia who wants Windows Phone. I'd say with Android Google is the real winner than the companies that uses it.