Windows 8 Coming into Focus in 2010,The company mentions Win 8 in a multitude of job posts

Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22nd, 2009, along with Windows Server 2008 R2, & both platforms made it to customers by October 22nd, 2009, with the client flavor of the OS being the last to reach the general availability stage. Undoubtedly, for the latest iterations of the client & server operating systems, the Redmond company will produce the first service pack come next year. There might even be a third service pack for Windows Vista, although Microsoft is keeping all details under a hermetically shut lid. But one thing is sure, as 2010 rolls in, Microsoft will shift its focus to Windows 8, the next generation of Windows.

Users are bound not to come across publicly shared details on Windows 8 from Microsoft for some time. Going out on a limb, I would say that the application giant will start unveiling the first Win8 information through official channels no sooner than the finish of 2010, or even in 2011. After all, Jon DeVaan, senior vice president, Windows Core Operating Technique Division, & Steven Sinofsky, president, Windows & Windows Live Division, kicked off the Windows 7 engineering conversation with the public in August 2008, a year & a half after Vista’s GA in January 2007.

In some way, the application giant is already offering Windows 8 tidbits to the public, albeit, all details available are insufficient to contour the company’s designs & strategy for the next iteration of Windows. As Windows 7’s successor starts coming in to focus, Microsoft is looking for additional people to join the planning & development efforts behind the Windows project. In this regard, the company has published a variety of Windows 8 related job posts, which have been “harvested” by a variety of Microsoft watchers, including MSFTKitchen.

Make no mistake about it, Sinofsky continues to helm the Windows project, & Windows 8 is bound to follow in the footsteps of its predecessor, Windows 7. Certainly, Sinofsky won't need to change what proved to be a winning strategy, thinking about the indications of Windows 7’s early commercial success, with strong sales, outpacing Vista’s by over double.

Microsoft has the Windows 8 job for you

One of the most interesting Windows 8 roles Microsoft is looking to fill is that of Sr. Manager, Partner Skills Development – Launch Lead, in the Worldwide Partner Group (WPG), Small Medium Solutions & Partners (SMS&P) Division for Microsoft Business.

Then there’s the Application Engineering: Program Management job for the Windows Division.

“Do you need to help ready the entire partner ecosystem on all the new Microsoft products & solutions? The Partner Skills Development Team is looking for a senior thought leader & skilled project/product manager to ensure the health of the partner ecosystem through the strategic evolution skills development framework (& its execution) for upcoming Microsoft product launches. For example, in Fy10, the focus will be on Windows Server R2, SQL Server R2, & Wave 14 (Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, & Exchange 2010) &, as they head in to Fy11, the focus will quickly switch to Windows 8. In this role you will lead the execution of partner skills development BOMs – by partner type for the entire partner ecosystem – on a WW basis. This role with interact with & influence individuals from across Microsoft, including individuals within the Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Learning, SMSGR, the product groups (BGs), Operations, & partner segment teams with SMSG,” Microsoft reveals.

“Are you ready to get closer to Microsoft’s best customers & biggest partners while staying in a highly technical role? The new Ecosystem Fundamentals team in Windows is hiring a Senior PM to work closely with OEMs driving continued increases in performance & reliability while providing tools, testing, training & telemetry. The successful candidate for this critical role will ride the Windows 7 wave of success to enabling continued improvements in to the ecosystem. This work includes Windows 8 planning, OEM gizmo & kit ownership, performance testing & analysis focused on improving the hardware/software ecosystem while working closely with OEMs, ODMs, ISVs, & IHVs in order to strengthen Windows partnerships. Now is the time to move in to a great role centered in the Windows group & focused on customer satisfaction improvements based on solid engineering,” according to the company.


“The Windows Fundamentals Reliability, Security & Privacy (ReSP) team will improve the quality of Windows 8 by driving the trustworthy computing pillars of reliability, security & privacy in the Windows operating technique. They analyze reliability information from hundreds of millions of machines, making data-driven decisions to improve the ecosystem-meaning Windows itself, other Microsoft products, & our partners such as the OEMs, ODMs, chip makers, ISVs & IHVs. They will extend this to measuring the security & privacy of the ecosystem as well. They believe Windows will transparently recover from failures & will drive scenarios to enable this. They broadly own implementing the SDL method inside Windows, & will extend the SDL concepts to reliability, & possibly other Fundamentals. They have strong technology ownership in support of this mission, including advanced detection, control & reporting components such as the client-side portions of Windows Error Reporting (WER), Application Quality Metrics (SQM), Reliability Analysis Component (RAC), & prevention & recovery technologies such as the WinRE, restart manager, fault-tolerant heap, method reflection, RADAR leak detection, & network hang recovery. They will continue to build on our world-class auto-analysis & expert debugging infrastructure which processes millions of user & kernel mode failures, as well as expanding on tools & check infrastructures such as Longhaul testing, & a Fuzz testing lab infrastructure & expertise for testing protocols across Windows,” Microsoft notes in a job post for the position of Application Engineering: Check in the Windows Division.

“The Application Experience Bug Inquiry Team, AEBit, is looking for passionate SDETs that need to make an impact on Windows 8. On the AEBit team you will get the unique opportunity to challenge & grow your debugging skills on issues that span the entire OS. You will have the opportunity to engage with application vendors, OEMs, as well as internal component teams. You will also be applying & enhancing your knowledge of technique internals. As part of the AEBit team you will be responsible for driving & ensuring compatibility in Windows by engaging with component teams, root causing application bugs, & authoring mitigations. If you are a strong SDET looking for a challenge they would like to listen to from you,” an excerpt from a Application Engineering: Check job with the Windows Division reads.

A job in Application Engineering: Development for Server & Tools Business deals with Windows 8 Server: “Windows Server is the top-selling server operating technique & is growing share in a growing market. Central to the success of Windows Server is the experience of IT Professionals managing Windows Server. For our next release, they are taking that experience to the next level by helping to make IT Professionals more effective & more productive by shipping a product they will love to use.We work closely with UX & a passionate PM & Check team to deliver world-beating user experiences for managing Windows Servers. For Windows 8 Server, they are planning, architecting & building a new UX framework around themes that are key to the success of the entire Server product line.”

Of work, Windows 8 & Windows Live will continue to be joined at the hip, as Microsoft brings the Windows client closer to the Cloud. “The Windows Live Mail team is looking for a seasoned Lead Program Manager to drive our next generation Mail client, & manage one stellar PMs. Our client has over 40M users world-wide, & serves as a key component of our Windows Live 'light up Windows' strategy. Our current release is centered on hot new consumer features & better synergies with Hotmail & Windows 7, & our future releases will likely be tightly designed to work best with new Windows 8 platform technologies. They will also work closely with the Outlook team on ways to bring Windows Live to Outlook. Mail is part of the WL Desktop Communications team, which also includes Messenger. Our team values user-centered design, technical & engineering excellence, & attention to detail.”

Microsoft is also looking to create new IIS features for Windows 8. From the job post for a Program Management position with the Server & Tools Business: “IIS team is looking for an experienced PM to join our core platform team. Your role will span across driving key features in to Windows 8 as well as owning several out-of-band modules, including web analytics that will bring business intelligence for the customers that host applications & contents on IIS. Your work will help differentiate IIS & Smooth Streaming from Apache & Flash. You ought to also be ready to work in a fast-paced environment & have a strong desire for quality, security, & performance. Your feature will be used by millions of customers.”

“The TAG team provides the foundation services & infrastructure to support a unified check & dev workflow. This team’s charter includes – developing & jogging a unified check submission & execution technique for Windows 8, Automating Check pass scheduling & execution, results analysis & automated triage, Windows code coverage services, Developing & jogging the eBVT quality gate, supporting WinSE’s Windows 7 sustained engineering check needs. This is an exciting time to join the Check Automation & Gates team & lead the next wave of foundation services & infrastructure to ensure delivery of a high quality product. With openings across the team, there’s sure to be the perfect opportunity suited to your specific passion & enthusiasm,” Microsoft mentions in a job for the Windows TAG team.

The Redmond company is additionally looking for a application engineer to influence & contribute to Windows 8 serviceability. “The WinSE UX check team needs a strong SDET to create new check automation, write robust check designs, designing check cases, debug reported issues across Windows Shell & related UX, help establish sound check engineering processes, & influence & contribute to the serviceability of Windows 8. As an SDET on this team, you’ll design, implement, & execute various types of check automation, including functional, integration & release tests. You will also have several opportunities to write check tools, & work on security bugs, & will be interacting with PM & Dev counterparts in a dev/test/pm trio, & various partner teams. In this team, you will have an opportunity to ship important updates for Windows to solve critical reliability, performance & security issues by the Windows Update mechanism. This position requires strong communication & collaboration skills, & a drive for results. Overall, this position is best suited for a strong SDET looking for an opportunity to showcase your skills & innovate.”

There’s one aspect that is already set in stone, so to speak, when it comes down to Windows 8, one that not even Microsoft can, or will dispute, for that matter. Windows 8 Server will be a major release of the Windows Server operating technique, as opposed to Windows 7 Server, which ended up as a Release 2, namely Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft has argued that Windows 7 is indeed a major version of the Windows client, despite having Vista at its foundation, & 6.1 versioning specific of the evolutionary, than revolutionary development model selected.

Windows 8 in the making

The intimate connection between Windows client & server releases, following Vista SP1 & Windows Server 2008 RTM/SP1, continued with Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2, & is bound to survive with the building of Windows 8 & Windows 8 Server. But, in this context, it remains to be seen whether Windows 8 Server will drag Windows 8 along with it, & make it a new, undisputable, major version of the client, one that Microsoft won’t must defend.