Windows 8 marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, Gartner says-- closing the WinNT era and kicking off one where the new WinRT (Windows Runtime) dominates.
In other words, the king is dead... long live the king?
Not that Win32 will go away too soon, mind. A combination of the WinRT programming model, a new UI and legacy WinNT support should allow users to continue running Win32 programs alongside WinRT apps for at least the next 10 years.
Gartner says "Windows 8 is the start of Microsoft's effort to respond to market demands and competitors, as it provides a common interface and programming API set from phones to servers. It is also the beginning of the end of Win32 applications on the desktop." While Microsoft will continue supporting Win32, it also encourages developers to start writing WinRT applications.
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