It's an odd position, after all these years, to be firmly on the side of the company which for good reason became known as ‘the Beast of Redmond'.

After years of dominance including more than a few lawsuits in which it was shown to be abusing its market position, Microsoft has, in 2012, ended up the underdog.

It's nemeses today are primarily Apple (the ‘new Microsoft', apparently employing many of the same ‘lockdown the customer' techniques) and Google (do no evil, unless its profitable), although the Beast competes on many other levels too.

As the underdog, it is launching Windows 8 today. And we should all, consumer or business, hope that this is a spectacular product, whether you intend to use it or not.

That's simply because if Windows 8 is a big hit, it will crank up the pressure on competitors to do something special to keep us, the tech user, happy and loyal to their respective brands.

While we have our misgivings about how well the big ship of Microsoft turns, it is nevertheless a powerful organisation, with incredibly deep pockets. That means the ability to create awesome things (like Kinect).

Let's hope Windows 8 is one of them…and that we don't have to wait for Windows 9.