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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
That's pretty much what happened to every consumer that bought a Windows RT device.
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.
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.
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.
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
I'm sure they'll call the next model the Surface One to avoid any confusion.
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
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
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
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.
I'm sure they'll call the next model the Surface One to avoid any confusion.
My sources within Microsoft tell me the higher-ups have finally learned their lesson regarding making it hard for consumers to differentiate between their products.
According to them, the third iteration of the tablet will be called Playstation 5.
#DeleteChrome
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.
Ask customers of the Zune, music covered by PlaysForSure, the Kin and various other products that I'm sure Microsoft thoroughly supported after abandoning them.
The HP WebOS tablet lasted longer then the Surface 2.
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!
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.
It seems as well that Microsoft wanted the locked-down environment to prevent Windows RT from having viruses,
I don't think so.
Microsoft, ultimately wanted to duplicate Apple's App Store Environment. They were hoping the lower price point would bring in the users, which would spur development of the Applications for it, which would of course induce more to join the ecosystem. Once Microsoft realized the value of the entire system, they were willing to try and duplicate it.
Of course, the hardware was there, but the Apps and the OS itself fell short, and they were not able to complete the task at hand. In order for them to have a chance at success here, they need more time. Time that just may not be available.
Absolute BS. Microsoft wanted the locked-down environment in order to force users to their app store, so that they'd get a 30% cut like Apple and Google do.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Windows 3.1? You'd see its full potential with Office - truetype, common dialogs and all.
COM/ActiveX? Office became entirely based on it.
Windows NT's Unicode support? Office shipped with fonts covering the whole of it.
The innovative UI elements of Windows '95 (and long file names)? Office '95 shows how to take advantage of them.
The (in)famous banner? Office got it before MS Paint.
Perhaps it's with
But now with Metro, Microsoft are telling their whole community of developers that they need to make the biggest change in the history of Windows, to completely drop their proven, decades-old development tools and habits, and embrace a radically new programming paradigm and distribution channel. This requires large investments, and investments require trust, which tends to be lost when even the leader doesn't show the way.