Did Microsoft Simply Run Out of Time On Windows RT?

CWmike writes "Microsoft may have simply run out of time with Windows RT, Directions on Microsoft analyst Michael Cherry said on Friday. Windows RT, the name Microsoft slapped on the OS earlier this week after calling it 'Windows on ARM,' or WOA, for months, is the forked version of Windows 8 designed to run on devices powered by ARM SoCs, or system-on-a-chip. Cherry was referring to gaps in Windows RT's feature set, particularly the lack of 'domain joining,' the ability to connect to a corporate Windows network and the lack of support for Group Policies, one of the ways IT administrators use to manage Windows devices. 'This is pure speculation on my part, but it seems like they had to make a trade-off with Windows RT,' Cherry said. 'What we're hearing now about Windows RT is a function of time and how they wanted the thing to behave. It seems to me that the a key goal was to get battery life decent and keep the weight [of devices] down.' His analysis on RT's chance of success: 'I think you can take Windows RT off the table for enterprises,' he said."

Comments

No.

[realityimpaired]

They didn't run out of time on it. They did what they've always done with what they see as "consumer" versions of their OS: they deliberately left out certain network- and enterprise-related functionality.

Re:No.

[Overly Critical Guy]

Microsoft has always had a strong enterprise relationship, so it's more likely that the lack of IT features is due to a rushed release schedule rather than sales strategy, especially considering that the iPad has been seeing rising enterprise adoption rates, which Microsoft is almost certainly aware of. Microsoft just didn't have a choice, because they're so far behind in the tablet market that they needed to release something at all costs.

Re:No.

[Samantha Wright]

They could be trying to emulate the iPad. Keep in mind that it's done pretty well without features as strong as those on Windows.

Re:No.

[realityimpaired]

They had ARM-based code to join domains and apply system policies in NT4... this isn't some new reinvention of the wheel like "WinFS" was, this is a porting of existing code to a different platform, one for which they already had working examples of code to compare against.

Quite aside from that, it's high level code. You do not need to write the algorithms to join an NT domain in assembly or machine code, you write it in C and compile it for the arch. Porting a Linux distro to ARM does not mean rewriting the code from the ground up, it means recompiling with different flags... why would it be any different for Windows?

Re:No.

[Enforcer-99]

They could be but I'd say that's a bad bet - trying to "out Apple" Apple. Microsoft has always had advantages in existing software compatibility and enterprise security features (say what you will - Windows Mobile had many more security features than Android or iOS for a long time). They seem to be casting off their only real differentiators in an attempt to copy the success of the iPad. This will fail spectacularly.

Re:No.

[Sir_Sri]

They may simple not envision windows ARM as an enterprise product either. A windows 8 slate with an AM64/x86 CPU *should* be able to have comparable if not longer battery life compared to the arm counterparts, better compatibility, but probably a higher price. For an extra 100 bucks I could see the enterprise guys quite happy to keep it as 'regular' windows. Hell, for an extra 100 bucks I'd probably pay that as a home user device.

The problem MS is making is assuming that the home market and the enterprise can stay separate. They can't. Your desktop should be your server, domain controller, manage your 'group' policy (for one device per user and 1-4 users I'm not sure the term group really applies but it's the same basic usage scenario). Someone who goes out an buys a windows RT slate and then can't take advantage of the things that make windows windows is going to be a very angry customer. Enterprise buyers usually won't have that problem because they will have someone who knows something about the tech decide what to buy hopefully.

Put another way, I suspect Windows RT is going to be a consumer clusterfuck, but not because MS has 'ran out of time' on it, but because they don't understand how users will want to use it. If people want an ipad, let them buy an ipad. Windows slates need to be a different product than an ipad, but having a windows 8 RT shitty ipad clone that's basically a big phoneless phone, and a windows 8 x86 desktop without a keyboard sharing name and shelf space doesn't seem like a great plan.

Re:No.

[squiggleslash]

If it were true that the excuse was they "ran out of time", then someone somewhere would be lying. The ActiveDirectory integration of Windows isn't written in assembler, and there's no reason whatsoever to think it even has endian issues given it's all standard Kerberos and LDAP (OK, with some added functions, but nothing that involves decoding binary numbers in quite that way.) It's fair to say that enabling it is literally a matter of enabling a compile time flag, and running it through the test cycle a few times to catch whatever very minor issues might come up.

So whatever the case, we can safely rule out "time" as being a reason.

Here's a couple of more probable solutions.

1. Microsoft sees tablets right now as being a consumer item.

Microsoft is not ruling out there being a corporate need soon, but they know that tablet makers are not going to be trying to push them to small and medium businesses quite yet.

And larger enterprises aren't going to want it either. Larger enterprises are conservative, they're not going to jump ship or start corporately purchasing swathes of devices that do not run the software they already have, which by and large is standard Win32 (or even Win16) stuff. The day larger enterprises consider tablets worth jumping onto is the day Microsoft is in for a world of hurt, because an enterpise that can do that can just as easily switch to Ubuntu or Mac OS X, or iOS, or Android, or whatever, too.

So tablet makers are going to want a version of Windows that's aimed at the consumer. They're not going to pay extra, and waste precious Flash memory, on unneeded extras.

The story is essentially hogwash. This wasn't a decision made in a high level tech meeting, but in a marketing department. Having been bitten many times before, Microsoft is being very careful in introducing their tablet operating system.

2. We haven't moved to IPv6 yet

That might sound like a weird comment to make but think about it for a moment. The primary feature we're talking about here is domain management. Domain management works when every computer that's in the domain is part of the same network. There's little or no point in it when that's not the case.

Now... what are the characteristics of tablets? Well, tablets are ultraportable computing devices. If a business hands them out to employees expecting them to only ever be used on the corporate network, then... well, why is the business handing them out at all? Why not just go for regular PCs?

And if they're expecting the users to use them anywhere, then without hacks using VPNs, there's not going to be a way of ensuring the tablets are always on the same "network" as everyone else until that network is The Internet, which is only going to happen once we have ubiquitous IPv6.

Essentially, you're opening a can of worms by putting domain management features on a tablet in 2012. If "time" is the excuse, then it's not in the sense of "We can't implement domain management in time", because that's a load of crap. But it may be "We can implement it, but once we implement it, everyone's going to see a whole host of problems that have always been there, but weren't anything like as important back when you could expect even most office laptops to never leave the office network."

Re:No.

[DarkOx]

I have to agree with this, despite what others are saying. Microsoft bread and butter is the enterprise market. Microsoft usually is pretty sensitive and aware of their needs/wants. Just looking at the wide market place that exists for mobile device management solutions; packages that try to glue Windows Domain like management infrastructure onto ISO or Droid; its pretty evident the enterprise IT world wants tablet software they can manage like your typical corporate desktop.

My guess Microsoft is aware that Enterprise IT has stalled as long as it can and pressure form the business both top and bottom to deploy tablets and smart phones to largish numbers of users is forcing them to act. Microsoft simply can't wait, once the F500 world gets substantial deployments of either Droid and IOS devices they are not going to switch.

If Microsoft does not get an entry into the table space NOW they will NEVER be more than an also ran there. It will (DROID | IOS ) + (Good | Zenprise | McAfee | Mobile Iron ) in the work place. There will be no consumer market for them either, as DROID and IOS already have that space and the only foot in the door Microsoft could get is the "well its what we use at work," late comers, who won't exist.

No this is pretty typical strategy on Microsoft's part. Get something out the door to stifle the "vaporware!" cries, even if it only delivers a tenth of the vision and promise the rest is coming in version inext.

Re:No.

[mystikkman]

They could be but I'd say that's a bad bet - trying to "out Apple" Apple.

Microsoft has always had advantages in existing software compatibility and enterprise security features (say what you will - Windows Mobile had many more security features than Android or iOS for a long time). They seem to be casting off their only real differentiators in an attempt to copy the success of the iPad. This will fail spectacularly.

What nonsense. There are a whole host of Windows x86 tablets coming with full touch support and with new form factors which will be fully compatible with existing software and enterprise features of PCs.

And not to mention the fact that the author doesn't mention the enterprise features that Windows RT has.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/04/19/managing-quot-byo-quot-pcs-in-the-enterprise-including-woa.aspx

Very telling that the author is Gregg Keizer, who was involved in the scandals with faking Windows benchmarks to drive page hits.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/why-we-dont-trust-devil-mountain-software-and-neither-should-you/31024

And the submitter is CWMike, from Computer World. They know that Slashdot laps up anti-MSFT FUD and thus they use it to write drivel and get page hits from Slashdot. And judging from the comments, they're very successful in manipulating Slashdot for their own gains as they've historically with the fake benchmarks.

Re:No.

[recoiledsnake]

The Windows RT tablets will come bundled(for free?) with the Mother of All Enterprise apps, Office and the article doesn't even mention that.

Re:No.

[The Second Horseman]

No, it can't. The only tablet I'm aware of that can do any sort of enterprise auth out of the box (against Active Directory) is the Lenovo Thinkpad tablet (Android). You can use your AD password to lock/unlock the device. They also preload a Citrix client into the tablets.

Re:No.

[Trilkin]

Uh, what? Work-from-home/road problems with AD have -LONG- been solved with VPNs. They marry very well with AD and have for a while.

It does support enterprise

[shutdown -p now]

WinRT does have central administration capabilities, just not as extensive as enterprise editions of Windows.

Could've saved us all some time

[wonkey_monkey]

...and put this part in bold so I'd have known not to bother reading the rest of TFS:

This is pure speculation on my part

WOA

[88NoSoup4U88]

I can't help myself but see Keanu Reeves as Ted saying "woaaa".

Re:It's a huge undertaking

[bheading]

On the contrary, Windows NT ran on MIPS, PowerPC and Dec Alpha back in the day.

Even after Microsoft dropped support for non-Intel architectures with Windows 2000, it was rumoured that they maintained the ports to ensure that they did not break portability.

Re:But the iPad can't either!

[0123456]

The fact that the Win RT based devices can't join a domain doesn't matter. In fact, the iPad has never been able to join one and it doesn't seem to be a problem with them.

I think you miss the point. Why buy a Windows tablet if it doesn't have the Windows features that you're used to?

If a Windows tablet is no easier to integrate into your business than an iPad, why not just buy an iPad?

Why is anyone surprised?

[Weaselmancer]

Remember Windows Vista? Not finished. The finished version is called Windows 7.

This is Microsoft SOP. There is a shipping date, which shall be met. Functionality and bug fixes will be added later depending on what complaints they get in the press.

Just keep waving the hands

[SuperKendall]

Exactly, you're perfectly explained why the XBox 360 can't join a domain either. They must have run out of time!

I was not aware the Sony PS3 was making huge inroads into enterprises the way the iPad is.

Re:Just keep waving the hands

[recoiledsnake]

Take some time to read this:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/04/19/managing-quot-byo-quot-pcs-in-the-enterprise-including-woa.aspx

There are a whole host of enterprise features that Windows RT supports.

If they're not enough, you can get a Windows 8 x86 tablet, which will support anything that a desktop PC currently supports.

Why didn't the article link to that blog post or talk about it? It's plain FUD targeted at people like you and the MS haters have lapped it up hook, line and sinker like they've done with the author's previous articles. I am sure you can make a case that the features are not enough, but not even mentioning them AT ALL shows that it's a FUD article designed to drive page hits.

See the submitter of this fake benchmark article:

http://tech.slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=story&sid=10/02/18/0429258

Look at the submitter of this Slashdot story. It's the same Computer World guy.

Here's Slashdot post about how the above article was a fake.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/02/21/2329249/windows-7-memory-usage-critic-outed-as-fraud

You're not a cross platform kinda guy, I see ...

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Porting a Linux distro to ARM does not mean rewriting the code from the ground up, it means recompiling with different flags... why would it be any different for Windows?"

It would be very different, because Linux was written from the ground up by competent engineers with portability in mind. Windows was written by some very competent engineers, and many more with -shall we say - much less competence. In order to port Windows to ARM they have to find every place where an assumption was made about internal representation of data structures, word size, endian-ness, and a host of other issues.

Initially NT was DEC Alpha and x86, but they scrapped Alpha support. The reason is simple. Writing portable code, especially in languages like C and C++ take skill, significant effort, and additional time. Obviously, a company that couldn't be bothered to put the time and effort into develop secure code could not be bothered to invest the effort to make it portable either.