Microsoft: 'We didn't just smash Windows 7 and 8 together to make 10'

Microsoft keynote at IP EXPO today focused on the enterprise benefits of Windows 10

"We didn't just create Windows 10 by smashing 7 and 8 together," said Robert Epstein, Windows 10 launch lead at Microsoft.

The - somewhat defensive - comment was made at Microsoft's opening keynote slot at IP EXPO today, at which the firm was keen to emphasise the enterprise utility of the latest iteration of its new operating system.

"We're on a mission to empower every organisation and person on the planet to achieve more," Epstein said, adding, however, that this doesn't necessarily mean doing more.

"It's not necessarily about doing more," said Epstein. "We all have enough to do already, but we need to get people back to doing the things they want to do. How much time do we spend managing IT? IT is supposed to give time back to us. But we spend time updating systems and transferring files between devices. We need to get back to IT not controlling us."

He continued: "We need to deliver solutions that help drive transformation, but in a secure way. The demands on IT are huge, with budgets being cut, and security threats ever more sophisticated. So how can IT go back to being the hero rather than a source of frustration for users?

"IT is the intersection between these challenges, and it will be the centre of our lives," he said.

Steve Newby, Windows 10 lead at Microsoft, then took the stage to discuss the firm's four "pillars" of business transformation.

First up was security - which Newby said costs today's businesses "astronomical" amounts, citing Gartner research that firms pay $146 - $188 per device per year to keep it up to date and secure.

"We've addressed this with Windows Update for Business, which allows you to define how and when users get updates."

He then went on to discuss password reset costs, which he said can comprise up to 30 per cent of total helpdesk costs.

"We eliminate the need for password resets with Windows Hello and Microsoft Passport," claimed Newby. "The password is a shareable secret, so it's relatively easy to compromise, so we want to move away from this concept. Get rid of passwords and you get rid of that cost. So we're introducing biometrics, fingerprint scans or even iris scans as a replacement. The technology is built into the software in Windows 10. This biometric data unlocks the device and that unlocks the Passport in the device, which validates that user against network services.

"All the authentication happens on the device, it's not sent across the network at all."

Newby then described his next pillar, "enterprise data protection", which is a way of containerising personal and corporate data within a device, in common with most standard MDM (mobile device management) solutions.

He added Windows 10 can be told which applications are allowed to access certain types of data, drilling his point home by emphasising the risks of not properly securing data, citing data from a Ponemon Institute report from 2014.

"Only those trusted application can access sensitive data. The average cost of cybercrime per company in the US was $12.7m this year. This can be prevented with Microsoft Passport and Device Guard, you specify a signed set of applications, and only those can run on the device. So if malware hits the device, nothing in it can execute."

Moving on to dscuss his next pillar, "continuous innovation", Newby said: "Having a continually evolving operating system allows us to take advantage of evolving technology, and with Universal Apps, it autoscales across different devices.

"We're taking Store into the world of business," he added. "You can access the Store through an Active Directory account, so you can take advantage of the free software, and put your own Universal Apps up there.

"We've worked from a fundamental base, developed tech to get the best of both worlds, but built from the ground up. It might look like we've taken Windows 7 and 8 and smashed them together, but 10 is built from the ground up."

According to Microsoft, Windows 10 has to date been downloaded to over 100 million devices worldwide. You can read Computing's thoughts around the new operating system here.