Microsoft is committed to Windows RT

There was no shortage of armchair quarterbacking amongst our loyal readership when Microsoft announced a write down of $900 million due to poor sales of the Surface RT and other shortcomings that were revealed during that earnings call. They were not alone, Wall Street had a field day with Microsoft’s stock the following day.

That begged the legitimate question as to whether Microsoft was really going to devote resources and talent toward this vestigial operating system that looks like, but is different from Windows 8. The landscape indicates that Windows RT is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Microsoft is on the record that Windows RT was a “necessary disruption” to bring a version of Windows to ARM based processors thus providing a solution that is arguably competitive with the iPad. Brian Hall, Surface General Manager said that Microsoft is planning to continue developing both the Surface RT and Windows RT, “no ifs ands or buts.”

Then there are the “hints” about what Microsoft has up its sleeve. Getting full blown Windows 8 on a tablet is not a problem, but for smaller tablets, Windows RT makes sense because running a “desktop” in that environment is not very productive. Still, the modern-UI needs more applications to back its play. Microsoft is doing everything it can to woo developers to build more apps. Microsoft itself is developing an Office suite that has been “metro-fied” and it may be available as soon as the holidays (or early 2014).

Finally there is the glaring reality of Windows Phone. Windows Phone, like RT, also runs on ARM based processors and use a common NT core. The current environments exist separately, but it is no secret that Microsoft wants to unify the experience. With some of the concessions that are being made with Windows 8.1 for desktop computing, it is reasonable to think that we might actually see a blurring of the lines between Windows Phone and Windows RT on tablets down the road.

source: ZDNet