Welcome to a Touch-First World

Abstract

In April 2010, I first heard the phrase that defined Microsoft’s new strategy: “three screens and the cloud.” This referred to a targeted approach to ensure that Microsoft’s products were ubiquitous on mobile phones, desktop computers, and television screens and that these platforms provided a seamless experience by being held together with data in the cloud. The products represented on the three screens were Windows Phone 7, Windows 7, and Xbox 360. Microsoft still dominates the television screen, with its Xbox line accounting for approximately half of all game consoles sold worldwide and a continued focus to move that platform beyond gaming, but to me, Windows 8 brings a different meaning to three screens and the cloud—one where the three screens include phones, tablets, and PCs, all running on the Windows 8 core and tied with cloud services, as shown in Figure 1-1.