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Microsoft May Finally Put Windows RT Out To Pasture
onyxruby writes "Microsoft may finally be ready to put Windows RT out to pasture. After ignoring pundits, the public, and a staggering $900 writedown, the subsequent lack of sales for the second edition of the RT have finally gotten the message through. Speaking at a UBS seminar, Microsoft VP Julie Larson-Green said, 'It just didn't do everything that you expected Windows to do. So there's been a lot of talk about it should have been a rebranding. We should not have called it Windows (.DOCX). How should we have made it more differentiated? I think over time you'll see us continue to differentiate it more. We have the Windows Phone OS. We have Windows RT and we have full Windows. We're not going to have three.'"
wow, only $900 to write that stuff off? I would have cut them a check years ago to enable that
Whoa, you could almost buy a single tablet for 900$. I am truly staggered by the staggering size of that writedown.
Microsoft is poorer than I thought
That's pretty much what happened to every consumer that bought a Windows RT device.
Seems trhey are giving up on that too.
well it's more than I make in a day
Microsoft has developed a habit of killing every new product the second it runs into a little difficulty, and now wonders why consumers don't want to risk their money on new Microsoft products that will probably be dead in a year.
Mooooooooo
Table-ized A.I.
Re-brand? What was the hurry to get the ARM version out for if there was problems with the Microsoft apps on the platform?
What microsoft SHOULD have done is what Google and Apple did and basically made "Windows Tablet" based on the Windows Phone OS. So they would have had x86 machines running Windows 8 with a normal desktop OS (possibly with a few enhancements to make it run better on x86 tablets) then ARM devices (phone and tablet) running the Windows Phone codebase and supporting the Windows Phone interface and apps.
Should have be Windows Phone OS anyways. This would have allows all the windows phone apps to work (With little modification) and would have allowed for 4g version of the device as well.
Windows RT was a failure because no geek (the ones that would be the early adopters that, then, would pull another users to the platform) would spend money on something that doesn't allow dual boot!
Common, by the price you could get a ARM Notebook totally (and relentlessly) locked down to Windows RT, you could get instead a x86 netbook where you can install, also, Linux and its plethora of applications - that aren't the best thing in the World sometimes, but are far better than the Windows RT alternatives (not a surprise, as very few Microsoft developers manage to build *real* multiplatform applications! - remember the time when a Microsoft "multiplatform application" was a program that used to run on Windows 95, 98 ME and NT?)
The tablet niche was already taken, and the x86 niche wasn't threatened by a (yet more locked down) RT system whose only selling point was being capable to stay lit for more time without having anything to run.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
BS, dual boot is a minor feature that very few would use and would be a blip on the radar as far as sales go. The killer was the lack of apps, the locked down nature of the installed OS combined with general confusion.
This is an example of where the summary should be corrected after the fact, with an "Update" notice to acknowledge the many who gleefully pounced on the error.
In general, I think simple typos like this one (as opposed to misunderstandings or intentionally one-sided summaries by the submitter) should be corrected even after they've been posted. It just looks less goofy.
project management.
The product is called "Windows." Windows are static things. They are embedded into walls. They provide an unmoving portal into another space.
A monitor on your desktop behaves like a window in some sense. It is always in the same place. You sit and you look at it.
Windows Phone and Windows RT just don't make sense for mobile devices, and provide a kind of complacency to project vision and the wrong idea (unpalatable) to consumers looking for mobile devices.
MS should call the mobile product something mobile:
MS Pathways
MS Journeys
MS Passages
MS Ways
MS Compass
MS Latitude
Then they should focus relentlessly on small-screen/long-battery/mobile UX for the mobile system; design toward the lightweight, mobile ethos of the new name, and market it relentlessly not as "the same as windows" but in fact as exactly different from it.
MS Windows in your office
MS Compass for going places
"Because you're not always sitting still.
"Busy people do more than sit by Windows."
I'm not saying that the marketing is the product; we all know that's ridiculous and leads exactly to a product fail (mismatched expectations vs. reality). I'm saying that if MS was as marketing-led as they ought to have been, they'd do the field research to know what mobile users need (field research they clearly haven't done well) and target the product to those needs, as well as the marketing campaign.
Who needs Windows in their pocket on the street? Nobody. Windows belong inside walls.
Same thing goes for the hardware product. "Surface?" Sounds static and architectural. The opposite of mobility. You can see that they themselves imagined the product this way based on what was shipped out the door. Come up with something lightweight and mobile.
The Microsoft Dispatch.
The Microsoft Portfolio.
The Microsoft Movement (tablet) and Microsoft Velocity (phone).
These are not great ideas yet, but they're light years ahead of "Windows" and "Surface" for a mobile device that ends up acting just like a "Window" or a "Surface."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
So does this mean that I won't have any support from MS now? I mean, they can't just leave me and the two other people who bought Windows RT devices in the dark, can they? Is that even legal?
Who are the greater fools? The "cool" or the fools who follow them? I think we already knew; but it's always nice to get a confirmation study. Now if you'll excuse me I have some bitchin' gospel rap to listen to on my Zune.
Microsoft has a disruptive model of work, and this just shows it. They have no interest whatsoever in giving continuity in the long run to their APIs/products, to sell new ones and new training too. And then there are the failed market of bad products. Newsflash, there isnt a tablet market, it is an iPad market. And then there is a market of subpar, less than 100 euros tablets for iPads wannabes.
"Windows RT is an orphan child that sits between Windows 8 and Windows Phone and is neither fish nor fowl."
Oh it's foul alright...
Pretty much this. I am still telling my friends when they ask about tablets if they want something that can run full apps like they are used to, get the surface pro if money is no object but OTOH for the budget minded im referring them to mainly the nexus line of tablets for trivial use (entertainment)
I love the surface pro system, my buddy picked one of the first ones up from a 3rd party its got an I5 in it and it was awesome, he can even play full framerate games on his going and he has a dual boot with a full out linix distro (he changes it every other week it seems) but if the cost were a little bit lower on the surface pro lines, even the 3rd party ones from the likes of dell and others they would have a killer tablet i mean just the spec sheet should be selling a shit ton of them
can run pretty much any windows app ever made in the past 20 years, light weight good bat life and yes, expansion via SD cards and USB. Me? Im still using a kindle fire running cyanogenmod but im going to upgrade in the next month or 2 (i really want a 10 inch tablet)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The RT has fixed in consumer minds that ARM isn't the right technology for tablets, Intel is where its at. Surface RT having successfully muddied the waters, it's time to cut the product loose.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Nonsense.
The problem was simple and obvious. It was called "Windows", but when Joe Schmoe tried to install a windows application on it, it wouldn't run.
The "geek" market isn't even a statistical blip on the radar of market share nowadays.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What is a surface?
Is it a tablet?
A laptop?
Is it highly mobile (well sort of, but not like iPad)
Really lightweight and fast (well sort of, but not like iPad)
Powerful for stationary work (well sort of, but not like a laptop)
Easy to carry (well sort of, but not like an iPad)
Heavy, substantial, and durable (well sort of, but not like a laptop)
People do two things:
(1) Use technology for work or play at their desk
(2) Use technology for work or play not at their desk
Two basic use cases. Just two, at the very bottom of things. In case (1) you go all-out on hardware and power; don't make them sit longer than they have to, let them get their work DONE! (Power, power, power, some ease of use, no compromises.) (2) you go all-out on not making them feel like they need to return to their desk; give them what they need to do what they need to do without feeling tethered (Mobility, mobility, mobility, touch-friendliness, battery, no compromises).
Two basic use cases and Microsoft managed to not hit either one of them well.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Microsoft Floors
Table-ized A.I.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
to post this musical tribute.
"How should we have made it more differentiated?" is the wrong question.
People wanted a fully functioning version of Windows that would run all day on an ARM chip.
Completely doable. But Windows RT completely crippled the OS by removing certain functionality AND by preventing you from installing your own software.
So compare: Fully functional Windows PC at $300 upwards to partly functional Windows tablet that can't run your own software at $600 upwards. It's an obvious choice even at the SAME price point let alone double. Failure. Real shame. I have a Surface RT. It's an excellent tablet, better than an iPad 4 (we own one). But it's not competing against an iPad. It needs to do what a PC can do AND be a tablet. It could have done that (and would have won the market priced the same as an iPad 4 if it could have done that). They prevented it from doing that. And that's why it failed.
also buy out ModernMix and build it in to the base OS with the full start menu back.
It could have worked, but they simply never put that much behind it in terms of thought.
You could see it coming a mile away.
If they spent some time maybe making a good virtualization layer, it could have maybe worked. (with a warning that if the tablet was in battery mode that virtualization might chew threw the battery more)
Virtualization has come a long way in the recent decade, especially hardware virtualization support.
That way people could have some sense of the programs they used to love.
The ideas behind it were nice too, but it was just lack of software.
Also the fact that they never had good support for mouse and keyboard with the UI.
They could have done some stuff like holding capslock and shift to move frame sizes just by moving the mouse left and right, for example. (may as well use capslock for a hotkey modifier, I already do it since caps is SHIT.)
And take some ideas from the wonderful KDE UI shortcuts and window management, nothing beats KDE for that.
The tiling manager was actually really nice.
If only they kept at it. They could have actually fixed it. Oh well. RIP.
I think the real reason for RT was to spur Intel to get better power consumption on their chipsets for the real version of Windows, seems to have met that goal if you view it that way
RT isn't for phones, it's for tablets and above. Might as well use a real CPU in devices like that. Now I am going to run away from all the angry ARM guys who think custom configured OS software for each specific device is a good idea. People who think that being able to install a driver by hitting next next next is not important. People who believe that device companies should control what version OS you use and when it can be updated. That's ARM.
shoulda could woulda doesn't cut it and now you're just giving excuses for why nobody wanted your product. And because you wanted to market a $149 keyboard add-on with your tablets to get people to think they are laptops, well you got what you dished out.
I still find it amazing that Microsoft continues to try and use hardware differentiation as why someone should buy a Windows Phone(big camera) or Windows tablet(keyboard makes it a laptop). It's as if they know nobody cares about their software and even their Metro tile interface and they are trying very hard to be the hardware company Apple is. Comical failures continue to fall out of their halls.
Scroogled?
"It just didn't do everything that you expected Windows to do"
It's almost as if it was written on a completely different processor architecture even! Oh wait...
Julie Larson-Green enhanced productivity? Through the bloody, accursed, and pretty much universally despised Ribbon. Yes, she certainly defined productivity. Millions of office workers totally lost with one of the most convoluted UIs imagined. We're supposed to consider her opinion sacrosanct?
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
They should have just left it unlocked, rather than make us jailbreak it by force. By forcing us to jailbreak, they guarantee that commercial applications never get ported to it.
I guess Microsoft didn't care, because they consider the desktop to be deprecated, something they will remove in a future version.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
This is the first site I've come across that has interprested Larson-Green's presentation to indicate MS is ditching RT. Every other one has assumed that they're just going to merge the WinPhone shell into RT and make Modern UI more scaleable across screen sizes.
This isn't shocking. They had branding problems by calling it Windows. It's near impossible to explain the difference to a non-technical user. The end result is that Microsoft will no longer have any ARM tablets. This will mean, for a little while at least, their tablet hardware will be more expensive and drain batteries faster. Not exactly traits that will have them dominate the tablet market. They might be able to get users that want or need to run Windows applications on a tablet, but that's not a large percentage of the tablet market.
blowing a billion dollars making your brand look like shit is an expensive way to motivate in Intel. And rumors would have done that.
pain
If they hadn't locked it down, Windows RT could have just been another target to which developers could recompiled their software and that would have kick-started the application ecosystem somewhat. It would have been with desktop applications, though, which Microsoft considers deprecated. Desktop applications also don't work with touch control very well and more importantly don't make Microsoft any money.
It seems as well that Microsoft wanted the locked-down environment to prevent Windows RT from having viruses, an inevitable side effect of open development. Many more people bought the virus-laden Surface Pro than the Surface RT, so maybe people like their viruses =)
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
While this may be an apt analogy for Microsoft's RT development process, and might clarify one of their motivations, I don't think it's really a complete answer.
...of using their desktop monopoly to strongarm their way into the mobile market.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
RT couldn't find a value proposition that created a market just like windows phone is struggling. Windows without legacy compatibility is just not attractive (live by the sword, die by the sword: windows on x86 has gobs of compatible software, windows on arm has next to nothing compared to google and apple devices).
The initial hard *need* for RT would be that Intel couldn't/wouldn't release an architecture that would even get in the same ballpark as ARM manufacturers in terms of cost and power. Now that need is greatly reduced with Intel's Bay Trail platform. Windows 8 x86 tablets are in the same ballpark as the Nexus 7. There are certainly cheaper android devices more and more, but Intel and MS could elect to participate at those price points if they want to at this point and still turn a profit.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Microsoft seems to operate using a very simple scheme whenever they encounter a market they are not familiar with:
1) Deny it, ignore it
2) Belittle it
3) OK, 1) and 2) don't seem to work, let's turn it into what we know already - PC! With some creative branding the customer won't see a difference!
This is going on for decades already. Basically, they are trying to turn everything into the only thing they know, where they have a strong market position and what they could leverage to conquer that market for themselves. That is PC and DOS/Windows. They don't really have a profitable market share elsewhere.
Good example of this was the Sun's NetPC (basically thin clients) vs Microsoft's Network PC (regular Windows PC booting over the network - no advantages of the NetPC, but all the disadvantages of the Windows PC), XBox (basically a PC with a proprietary/non-standard hw), PDAs with Windows CE (transplanting a desktop UI on a PDA with a stylus really didn't work too well), tablets with a desktop OS (even Windows RT is regular Windows, just crippled and running on ARM), etc.
Unfortunately, the above strategy worked probably only for the XBox, where it the customer didn't really care and it made development simpler. The rest were/are flops, because people don't want a crappy PC instead of a phone or a tablet. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't get that, they have an uncanny knack to take exactly the one feature that makes the device actually attractive to the user (usability, speed, battery life, portability, etc.), remove it or completely hose it up, but you do get the "Windows experience" instead! This, when combined with their frequently brain-dead UI implementations designed by someone who has likely never had to use their own products, is a deadly combination for any product.
I spent my fair share of time attacking Windows RT from a position of no experience and later a position of limited experience with it. Most recently I've spent a few weeks with a Windows RT tablet and it's grown on me.
I'm not sure what people mean when they whine about no apps, except that I must assume they are gamers. I have Netflix and Hulu installed. It has Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote. Its base apps allow you to browse the web, read the news, check the weather, play local videos, etc. Apps on the Windows Store will allow you to access streaming music, control your Xbox, monitor your exercise, etc.
Seriously, what the hell more do you want from a tablet?
Shit, at some point why the hell aren't you using a desktop or laptop?
This isn't to say Microsoft hasn't fucked up. They shouldn't have used the Windows name, they should have made a fat fingers-friendlier version of the desktop/windows explorer and they should have done a better job about filtering the damn store. Yes, Windows RT has but a mere fraction of the apps that Android or iOS has, but the worst part of the user experience is just how many shitty apps there are. If Microsoft pared it down, the useful apps would become more apparent.
Microsoft could have made an argument about quality. They missed that boat.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man!
Windows Phone OS had been released in the hopes of getting to rough parity in the market with Android and Apple. MS had to start from scratch due to both form factor driving UI redesign and also because no x86 vendor was remotely ready to enable such a thing. After having a late start and nothing really to distinguish themselves from apple and google apart from having a smaller application library, things look dire.
The whole point of Metro was essentially to 'throw the desktop users under the bus' so to speak. MS had learned already (Vista) that MS laptop/desktop customers are very much *stuck* with them and the risk of dramatic change to their share is negligible. So they needed to try to move developers to a model that would get them closer to the windows phone platform, hence metro.
Of course the RT situation was always questionable. An x86 based solution could do a strict superset of the RT based devices, and AMD at least was desperate enough to give the right pricing (and Intel felt the pressure enough to deliver viable solutions in time as well). WIndows value proposition is the ability to run existing x86 Windows applications. Without that, there is nothing really to recommend it over other platforms.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
They should have called it ZuneOS.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
because Microsoft isn't much of a brand. Everyone knows Windows, but I'll bet half the people who use it couldn't tell you what Microsoft is, and half of those couldn't name anything else MS makes, besides Office. So the only thing MS had to leverage was Windows, which created a crapload of confusion.
That said, I do agree with you, because MS needs to create a new brand, and they have the resources to play the long game. But they chickened out, and that didn't work out so well for them.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
The HP WebOS tablet lasted longer then the Surface 2.
Windows RT implies it runs Windows which is a clear feature. The fact it doesn't wouldn't have lost them sales.
What killed both the Surface and Surface Pro were the prices. With Microsoft's $60bn cash reserves, it should have been selling the Surface at a loss and the Surface Pro at cost. It was happy to do this with Windows Phone.
Microsoft's backwards step with Windows 8 obviously didn't help either.
Is Windows RT going to 'upgrade' itself to Windows Phone? Or are people who bought RT devices just stuck with the OS they have? Just curious since they are limited on apps. I would guess that people who bought one of these devices did it because it was cheap and simple. They probably won't have the know-how to run Windows 8 apps, or to install Linux. It sounds like it might turn into something like the Mac PPC to Intel conversion where people are stuck with a decent machine that can only run old apps.
"RTurd edition... flush now, never MiSsed"
If they'd called it iWindows it would have lasted longer.
Having said that, what with three different OS offerings that aren't compatible, ditching backwards compatibility with years of Windows software, plus development tools that cost a fortune rather than beeing free, not to mention an obviously late to the game me-too attempt to ape Apple with e "Windows store" that had the feel of an embarassing elder relative trying to pull a few funky moves at a wedding disco, well......... far too little, far too late guys.
Seriously. If you want to get any kind of traction in a new market, ASK SLASHDOT. I'm not kidding at all. Sure there will be trolls and there will be some really stupid ideas. But if any group of people out there will be able to predict the success of a product offering and be able to voice the opinions of the market, it's this group right here.
We all knew Windows RT wasn't going to make it. But then again, we knew it based on Windows 8. You still haven't listened to you customers and support people (AKA Slashdot) in any of this.
And this is something you simply haven't tried yet. You keep doing the same crap, living on your bloated Win16, Win32, Win64 model which is now a security nightmare and what's it gotten you? Negative public opinion for one. Public doubt for another. If the public says anything it's that Windows isn't wanted when "something other than Windows" is available. You never should have made a Tablet version of Windows. It should have been a tablet version of anything else! And frankly, since Android is making more money for you than many other things, it seems to me you should just embrace it and run! But why not? Oh, because you don't control it... forgot about that little obsession. Well, you're controlling the market less than you did before anyway and it's just going to get worse. Embrace the change or be left behind.
And ASK people who know!
Well that plus you're still stuck with Windows 8 no matter which flavor of it comes on the device.
I think over time you'll see us continue to differentiate it more. We have the Windows Phone OS. We have Windows RT and we have full Windows. We're not going to have three.
From three to two reduces differentiation, which MS is going to add even more. It must be that negative differentiation. Once the RT apps start working as reliably as desktop applications, perhaps the platform can be considered again for serious use.
Slashdot also knew the iPod, iPhone, and iPad were all going to be flops. I don't trust any tech predictions that originate from here.
Isn't RT just a crippled Windows 8.x, compiled for Tegra 4? Would the product do any better if they upgraded to full Windows, allowed desktop applications (recompiled for ARM) and opened the boot-loader?
The current model seems too restricted, when for a couple of hundred more you could buy the Surface 2 Pro, albeit with half the battery life.
You'd still have the product differentiation problem of 'this won't run applications compiled for a (x86-64) desktop'.
Flying cars excepted, of course.
Have gnu, will travel.
Why didn't they just call it Windows Tablet, instead of the obscure "Windows RT" that doesn't give consumers a hint that it's a reduced functionality operating system.
The iPad can't run every OSX application, and consumers can understand that Windows Tablet can't run every Windows application.
What does "RT" mean, anyway!?
I didn't mod the parent 'underrated.' I modded it 'funny.'
8 words about the iPod from the slashdot (the "people who know!"):
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
Face it, slashdot is an echo chamber where predictions bear little resemblance to the reality outside of it.
THe problem was not that WIndows RT was misbranded - it was that WIndows RT was a seperate version of WIndows. They should have had only ONE version of windows and had HALs to allow it to run on all types of hardware - much like windows XP used to do. Yes the coding for some of the programs would not have worked on non-86 processors but the same is true of x32 progrmas on an x64 processor - how did they solve that problem - the WOW64 system.
The problem was not marketing or hubris (entirely) - it was good old fashioned piss poor lazy coding and engineering. The customer does not want to know why something will not work - they just want it to work.
you know...after re reading this... i can see why it was modded funny... it really does read like a shill post if you negate the dual boot part to it and the kindle part of it.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
By the time they tried Windows RT you could get ultra-portables with real processors (x86) for nearly the same price as dumbed down ARM processors.
The problem is that Microsoft didn't let developers recompile their x86 desktop apps for ARM even if the developers wanted to.
Windows RT is named after Windows Runtime (WinRT), the "Metro-style" system library that Microsoft was pushing as an alternative to Win32. It should have been "Surface OS".
Microsoft [...] consider the desktop to be deprecated, something they will remove in a future version.
When Visual Studio runs in the "modern UI" environment, I'll know Microsoft has deprecated Win32.
But if any group of people out there will be able to predict the success of a product offering and be able to voice the opinions of the market, it's this group right here.
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
Having worked on varying Office products from 97 up, I actually like the ribbon. In Office. It is a good idea. The problem is lack of training on that. As for dragging it into Explorer, no. That wasn't really a smart idea. Oh and negative productivity is still productivity! So when are they slashing the surfaces to $100. I'll buy one then.
You should have put windows... ACTUAL windows on those tablets.
Some twit is going to point out that they did that once and it didn't sell well.
1. That was before the tablet craze.
2. The interface was crap.
3. The technology wasn't as good.
What MS should have done is provide a windows system with full compatibility with their other software in a tablet form factor.
MS has three points of leverage in the OS wars.
1. Legacy customers. These are the existing windows users want to use their existing windows software or something very much like it that can read and write all their old documents. These people are your core. MS keeps taking these people for granted and not making much of an effort to keep them happy. That is idiotic. If they keep doing that then the legacy customers will eventually evaporate.
2. Legacy money... MS has giant piles of money. But most of it comes from a previous age. Still... the money pile is massive and they can use that to help them in any OS war.
3. They have a lot of very bright people that work for them. Their ability to turn out reams of very sophisticated software is not to be underestimated. Not only that... they have quite a few innovators. This seems counter intuitive given that MS has not done anything interesting in awhile but that's not for lack of coming up with good ideas or even developing them to the proof of concept level. They just don't get executed.
Those are their strengths.
They should have leveraged their bright people and reams of cash to build a tablet that their legacy users would actually want. Look at the businesses using ipads for point of sale devices. That should have been MS. And it still can. But they have to take their heads out of their asses.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Microsoft has had a long history of (poorly) knocking off Apple's products. The Surface is no different. Apple's genius, which Microsoft utterly failed to appreciate, was in making the iPad run iOS instead of MacOS. Steve's reality distortion bullshit notwithstanding, this design decision invited comparison with the cheaper and less capable iPhone. Apple was able to frame the iPad, in customers' minds, as a super-size iPhone, rather than as a miniaturized version of anything that they would call a "computer".
By running software called "Windows" the Surface naturally inviting comparison to "conventional" Windows PC's. It faired poorly; PC-makers' razor thin margins meant potential buyers could buy nearly any Windows laptop for the same or less money, get a bigger screen, better keyboard, more storage, and be better able to do "real work". Surface RT added insult to injury by not even being a "real computer" in the sense that it didn't even run legacy Windows software.
Yeah, because we were so good predicting the iPod's success.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
That is the nicest thing I can say about it.
This is not going to help the developers that ponder developing a Windows RT app right now.
I have no Windows8 or RT phobia, but this news (if true) would put me off..
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Microsoft invented .NET.... the CLR virtual machine that allows the same byte code to run on any cpu. .NET applications...... must be close to zero.
And how many software companies have released their applications as
Microsoft should have made Visual Studio compile fat binaries, with both x86 native and .NET code. They could of even added in native arm.
Then any application compiled by VS will run on any version of Windows... including RT.
Microsoft failed massively, yet again.
If it had an unlocked bootloader; and I could find a Debian / Mint / etc port for it; I probably would have bought one.
At least then if (when) I noticed RT sucking I would have known I could fall back to something I could use.
But they didn't. So I didn't.
When it has served you well and faithfully you put it out to pasture. When it's lame you take it out back and shoot it.
It is pure Metro, the Windows RT experience is what they wanted for everyone. It was their future new platform and interface. To ditch RT is to ditch Metro and all that comes with it.
They should just stick with it and ditch Windows 8 Pro and go Metro only for tablets like they have done with Windows Phone 8.
Windows RT always struck me as a marketing ploy.
I mean I get it. There had to be a team of programmers, managers, and support staff that made a whole new OS. But when I saw the way that MS marketed RT, as some sort of sudo Windows, that it seemed that was the goal. Not that they really wanted to introduce a new OS but that they wanted to try and sneak it in.
And with the billions of dollars in their warchest due to them being a convicted monopolist they had to try right? When you are a convicted monopolist that escaped any real punishment you are going to continue to do what you have been doing.
So the near 1 trillion dollar failure of MS to push their way into the mobile market is likely done for now but they still have the Xbox One that is out now. And those very very low information types of people who buy consoles, not everyone but they are the target market, will help them stay alive for a bit yet with the failure that was Windows 8.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
How should we have made it more differentiated? I think over time you'll see us continue to differentiate it more. We have the Windows Phone OS. We have Windows RT and we have full Windows. We're not going to have three.
How do I aquire a soul? Pretty please tell me, or I'll bash your face in!!
No thanks. Not nice knowing you.
From a personal point of view :
At the highest end, we have Apple iPads, which aren't compatible with anything, but have the "cool" factor.
And all other bases are covered with android, from smaller chepaer tablets, through the Nexus Range and the Samsungs.
Now there is RT, which only benefit is that it runs office, where as the other two don't.
If the RT had been completely compatible with Windows (7) then there would have been a more compelling reason to have one.
From a works point of view
Well, the RT isn't domain compatible, so I might as well buy any of the others - whichever it's going to make and take a lot of work to integrate, so I might as well look at a solution that covers all.
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
Yeah, because we were so good predicting the iPod's success.
I have modded in this section so must comment anon. We could also consider the fact that the iPod success was purely because of the failure of Napster and the DRM schemes that didn't work on the Windows platform because you could easily rip audio to MP3 on Windows and every kid on the planet knew how to do it.
Apple saw a wonderful opportunity and went on to corner the market by making it so that their iTunes system actually made some money for the rock producers. As CD sales plummeted the iTunes took over the industry. Microsoft tried desperately to copy the idea with Zune and failed miserably, exactly the same thing has happened with RT tablets. They tried a non differentiated "me too" approach to the market and failed, not because they were too late but because they in reality had nothing other than MS office to bring to the plate. AND ALL the consumer really wanted was a cheap alternative to the iPad and iTunes which Android has done quite nicely.
I do not know what Microsoft could have done differently, but perhaps if the RT tablets had been cross platform DLNA capable with HDMI out or wifi to a smart tv then they might have caught on better. Samsung is killing it with Smart Tvs, if Microsoft was not so anti competitive then perhaps they could have made their RTs work fantastically well with all Smart Tv for starters. This is one thing they could have done, another could be to spend some serious cash on getting artists to release actual content for their devices in high bit rate format that would stream in Dolby digital from RT devices to DLNA capable home theaters. PEOPLE ARE sure as hell not going to buy a Surface RT just because it sports MS office!
Does this mean that the windows start menu will be restored?
We have to use windows 7 at work now and frankly it kills my productivity. My ability to do my job is greatly reduced.
We have windows 8 machines. I have tried it. The consensus around the office is that the in-your-face-flash-the-whole-screen that replaced the start menu is to teach the user to not use the start menu at all.
If they do not revert to the xp start menu then a way to disable it. For me it is at the point where I feel like screaming when it comes up.
So. RT is dead. Back to sanity now? Please?
Congrats on sucking everyone off here. Brilliant post.
Windows RT, even apart from having a terrible and confusing name, was entering a market where the iPad was already running away with the mind share.
The only way Surface RT would have had a chance is to seriously undercut Apple on price, hope to get enough of them out there to foster application development, and then recoup it later.
Add in terrible marketing (what the hell is Windows RT supposed to even mean? Why is it called Windows if I can't run Windows programs? etc.) and the confusion between the Surface and Surface Pro and.... yeah... bye bye.
They can pay me half what they pay the executives in charge of this stuff and I will be happy to hold their hands and impress upon them what should have been some very simple concepts.
used RT as the new phone/tablet OS and kept windows 8.X as full windows. If they really wanted to shoe horn the app experience on the desktop they could have had gadgets or a separate desktop you could switch over to (like Apps in OS X) rather than redo the start screen and force people to go around the new stuff allow people to chose to go to the new stuff. All this was done IMHO to force people to try RT apps and build a ecosystem for the Windows Store ... "and how's that workin' for ya'?"
Not even Microsoft themselves managed to port Office, their most important asset, to Metro, yet.
To be fair (which isn't something I often am to Microsoft), Office has got to be one of the most godawful pieces of spaghetti-code nightmare that anyone has ever tried to port to anything.
I don't think the phrasing should be "not even" Office has been ported.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Ask Slashdot, they can tell you if a product will fail or not with 50% accuracy. If you use a time machine, you can go up to 90% : Slashdot is quite good as predicting the past.
Communities like Slashdot are good for many things but predictions is not one of them. Of course, we have to be right sometimes (like with Windows RT) because being 100% wrong is just as hard as being 100% right
M$ has already announced that the Desktop is going to be deprecated in Windows 9.
Source please? Because if that's true, Microsoft has announced that Windows itself will be deprecated in favor of Wine on Xubuntu or LMDE or whatever else business PC makers want to build after Windows 7 reaches end of sale. And I'd still like to see leaked screenshots of Modern Visual Studio.
Yeah, better wait for Netcraft to confirm it.
Why would they drop it?
They need to enable Visual Studio to compile to ARM...
Now I can understand them dropping surface rt due to the confusion with the marketing. It would be a shame though - I have one and it is a great device.
"I raised my hand and asked my Steve Ballmer my question. To paraphrase, I asked this “Given that Microsoft is trying to recapture it’s “mojo” in the consumer space, and given all the recent talk about “start of a new era”, “Microsoft re-invented” etc. why didn’t Microsoft take this opportunity to name it’s new operating system, especially on phones something other than “Windows”?"
http://johnlange.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/i-finally-got-to-ask-steve-ballmer-why-windows/
Slashdot predicts that everything will fail.
So, yes, Slashdot is highly accurate predictor for Microsoft.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
>The "geek" market isn't even a statistical blip on the radar of market share nowadays.
I think that's exactly right nowadays, but many people here don't
seem to realise it.
they could have just emulated x86 on arm.
maybe some gpgpu magic and a few arm cores could have done it.
maybe not fast enough to use BUT ATLEAST THEY COULD HAVE FUCKING DONE IT!
Yeah. Right.
Tell that to Android users. Tell that to Linux users. Tell that to retro-games uses.
Every single success product started with that blip, before making success and leaving the geek "market share".
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
I BS your BS. :-)
For each "geek" that cares about dual booting, there're tens and tens of "non geek" users that rely on the geek to keep their system working.
Non tech users will use what the tech users know how to fix.
(or your grandma and grandpa pays someone to fix their systems?)
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org