Windows 10
In Silicon Valley (and in media satellites that take the NoCal mindset to New York and beyond), everyone has an iPhone, a MacBook Pro, and a Gmail account. Microsoft products and services might as well be from Mars. So be skeptical when you read analyses or predictions of what's coming next from Redmond.
It's true that Windows RT had an inauspicious and confusing debut, culminating in an embarrassing $900 million writedown of the Surface RT. The ironic thing is that that writedown came about as a direct result of Microsoft's confidence in the product it had produced. Had executives been more cautious with their launch plan, they could have built and sold a smaller number and never had to deal with that writedown.
Ah, hubris.
But is Windows RT going away? Hardly. And anyone who tells you so is betraying a fundamental understanding of the Microsoft roadmap.
Windows RT is, at its core, the Windows 8.x/9 platform, minus the ability to run desktop apps. Now that 40 percent of new PCs are shipping with touchscreens, do you think Redmond is going to drop its new touch-centric user experience and app platform? Uh, no.
The confusion comes about because Microsoft has announced plans to consolidate its APIs for Windows across the board, so that developers who write Windows apps can target phones, tablets, and PCs with relatively minor changes in code.
It's possible that Windows RT as a brand will fade into the background. You can already see hints of that in Microsoft's decision to build a successor to Surface RT and call it simply Surface 2.
But the basic concept of a touch-first platform that runs modern apps from a curated store in a highly secure environment? That's not a dead end; it's the future.
Caption by: Ed Bott
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