[Prestidigitweeze]

Steven Sinofsky is another matter. One question is whether Microsoft's BoD will bring Windows 8 closer to creating tablet autonomy or cripple it further with imitative second thoughts.

Another question is whether that vast library of programs which runs on Windows 7 will still run on 8, let alone on later Pro tablets that might emerge once Microsoft grows resigned to falling back on that library.

Nintendo is a company that relies on a vast library to sell its devices, but its other strategies -- cutting costs and adding gimmicks to distract from the s-l-o-w progression of the hardware and software -- are antithetical to Microsoft, which revises software drastically, forgoes gimmicks, and emphasizes premium hardware apart from Windows' compatibility with nearly everything.

It seems to me that Microsoft could give us the perfect tablet OS. Google is about communication, ads and seeming to offer freedom as it locks you into permanent surveillance, and Apple is morphing back from its Linux-OS-X geek-friendliness to stopping the user from doing things directly as it did in the days of System 7. Whereas Microsoft could be creating the OS that makes tablets as powerful as they should be without compromising security, being pointlessly restrictive or dumbing them down in the name of privacy-free friendliness. Either that, or we could get back to the modular laptop I've always wanted (keyboard in one pouch of my satchel, display/PC in another), with no compromises whatsoever in performance or complexity.