Microsoft has shown the world what Windows 8 has to offer and oh my, the staff at Redmond have been busy. If you want to see all the announcements coming from the Build conference, PC Pro has been doing some exemplory coverage.

As a company, Microsoft has been playing it safe for a number of years now. Vista was originally surrounded by so much promise including a new filing system, but many of the features never made it to release. It felt like Microsoft lost it's nerve and decided to be more conservative. Afterall a new look to Windows was enough wasn't it? *cough*

Then we got Windows 7, which really tidied up the mess that was Vista but still nothing particularly ground breaking. Now we have Windows 8 which is pretty much a complete rethink on the modern operating system.

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Let me explain, Microsoft has completely redesigned the user interface for Windows. Gone is the traditional task bar layout, in its place is the new "Metro" interface. If you're familiar with Windows Phone 7, you'll already know the underpinnings of the interface. Microsoft has taken what it has done on the smartphone and scaled it up in what appears to be a very clever way. The ability to not just position your tiles but to resize them as required, customising your screen so everything that is important to you is front and centre. The motivation here is obvious, tablets.

Microsoft has been bullish in pushing the tablet form factor with a full scale Windows installation. Problem is, traditionally it's not finger friendly and it has been a complete failure. By so radically changing the user interface and the way you interact with it, Microsoft has seemingly conceded that the old approach wasn't working. This new approach is both welcome and a radical departure from the status quo at Redmond.

From a tablet point of view, Microsoft has really changed the game and doubtless could be set to make inroads on a market that, until now, has been dominated by Apple with the groundbreaking iPad.

Microsoft has also announced support for ARM processors, this puts Windows 8 within the realm of low powered processors. This is significant as previously, only being able to run Windows on more substantial hardware has limited earlier ventures into the tablet realm to machines that were more like a notebook in terms of size and weight than a lightweight tablet device like the iPad. In fact the iPad's success can largely be attributed to making it easy to use, well performing and lightweight.

Make no mistake, Microsoft is targeting the tablet market extremely hard here, covering both low power and high power tablet devices. As an example, Microsoft has been dishing out some Samsung Core i5 based tablets pre-loaded with Windows 8 to every developer in attendance at Build. In 12 months time, we could see some serious competition in the tablet market space, possibly pushing Android to the sideline and leaving Apple and Microsoft to square off. I hope Apple is taking note here, iOS 6 requires a complete UI overhaul and simply sticking with the traditional iOS look won't cut it with Windows 8 in the market place.

But what about the desktop? Well Microsoft has that covered too, however this could be the "weak" link in the plan. Tablet or desktop, the UI experience will still be using "Metro" but MS has put a lot of thought into this claiming the concept is scalable. In fact for consumers it could be a real bonus having Metro. Think about it, all of your favourite content (facebook, twitter, photos etc) will all be front and centre from the get go. For consumers this could make computing easy. OS X Lion may be the most advanced OS at the moment, but Windows 8 could threaten that too. The days of Microsoft resting on its laurels have finally ended.

In an odd move though, all applications will be full screen in Windows 8. By contrast, full screen applications have to be enabled by the user in OS X Lion, but Windows 8 will effectively force this on you. On tablets and low resolution screens this could be extremely useful, but on high resolution desktop displays it may become frustratingly limiting. You can still opt for the traditional layout, however a taskbar type interface is launched as an "app" from within Metro should you need it. A curious move but not necessarily something for concern.

Maybe the sector that may be at odds with all these changes is business. Microsoft are clearly targeting the consumer, but knows a lot of it's money comes from businesses. It's possible the radical overhaul could initially deter companies from upgrading but only time will tell.

Microsoft has made some serious changes, Windows 8 could possibly be the best thing out of Redmond in years. Computing is about to change, there's no doubt about that now. As for the other technologies in play within Windows 8, I will be posting about those later. For now though, let's all bask in the little ray of sunshine coming from Microsoft's direction, I for one can't wait to get my hands on this new operating system.