Surface RT Devices Won't Get Windows 10

whoever57 writes: In its announcement of Windows 10, Microsoft indicated not all devices would get the updated operating system. Now, Microsoft says its Surface devices running Windows RT won't be receiving full updates, though it does plan to roll some new functionality into them. "Given that Windows RT and RT 8.1 were designed for power economizing devices sporting 32-bit ARM architecture, and never had the same functionality — to many users' frustration — as full-blown Windows 8 and 8.1, it comes as little surprise that the RT versions of the operating system should be left out of the latest update loop. In fact, a week before Microsoft's big Windows 10 reveal on January 21, the company released firmware updates for all three models of its Intel-powered Surface Pro series, but neither of the ARM-based Surface tablets — the Surface 2 or Surface RT — received any new updates this month." The Surface Pro line of tablets, which run a normal version of Windows, will be getting an update to Windows 10.

Comments

Translation:

[Viol8]

"We're dumping RT"

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

A good thing too. Beyond an extremely small niche they never played well and on the consumer side the locked down RT arm versions just caused confusion.

Re:Translation:

[jandrese]

Surface RT was always a bastard child of the lineup. They sold pretty poorly too, so it's not a surprise that Microsoft is wiping their hands of the whole product.

Re:Translation:

[jellomizer]

Like they dumped CE
As well NT for the PowerPC and NT for the Alpha.

In short Windows isn't successful unless it is compatible with the decades of legacy stuff.

The reason why we are not all on 64bit windows is because we still may have some 16bit windows 3.1 apps that we cannot replace.

When Microsoft dominated they pushed developers towards non-cross platform development... So now they are forced to deal with back-assward compatibility.

Re:Translation:

[Chrisq]

They have yet to see past Exchange and Office and understand what most people actually do with these things.

You mean watch porn, right?

Re: Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

RT was dead as soon as MS went out of their way to break the jailbreak.

Re:Translation:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That isn't strictly true, unless you ignore the fact that x86s are available(what they'd cost if Intel weren't attempting to buy marketshare might be less exciting) at more or less the same power envelope as the punchier ARM SoCs. They still have nothing on the low end of what ARM can do; but that hardly matters for phones and tablets.

Windows/x86 devices are pretty common in similar sizes and prices to Android or iOS on ARM(and, actually, some Android/x86 devices are virtually indistinguishable from a Windows/x86 device from the same vendor until powered up). There is also still the more-or-less-complete-NT; but somewhat different UI and application layer in WP8, which isn't being axed.

I'm not sure why anyone would mourn the worthless abortion that was Windows RT. All the cruft of full Win8(more, in fact, since the 'WIMBoot' feature never made it over there), including a full desktop because they couldn't be bothered to port Office to their own new UI; but with pointless cryptographic lockdown to the wonderful world of a mostly impoverished app store. All with the mediocrity of a Tegra3, and at relatively modest savings over a real computer! What's not to love?

If they actually wanted to have a go at making NT multi-architecture again, that'd be one thing; but taking pretty much all of Windows 8, then gimping it just because you have a hard-on for Apple's app store success? An idea that stupid deserves death.

Re:Translation:

[gstoddart]

Well, I assume YouTube videos and Facebook (or whatever the hep kiddies are running) .... but, yeah.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

You've just come around to this? You've been asleep.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really sad or a surprise, it was clear when the Pro-3's came out with no associated updated RT's that they were done with the RT models, just no real need for it with the newer chips from Intel, and there are higher margins on the actual useful pro models. Add in the customer confusion expecting full x86 windows, related incompatibilities, were not selling well and it's a very easy decision to kill them for now and focus on where the money is - the feature rich versions.

Re:Translation:

[c2me2]

As usual, you're working hard to spin things in the most negative light you can.

ARM is a power-efficient platform, but nothing prevents Intel (or someone else) from producing a power-efficient x86/x64 platform. Even the *current* Surface Pro 3 (which is a full i5 processor) can run for about 8 hours doing a "normal" workload. Reference: http://www.techradar.com/revie...

Intel is going to continue to improve the power efficiency of its processors, either by improving the power of Atom, or by further reducing the power draw on i3 / i5. The current generation of x86 laptops and tablets (including Surface Pro and other laptops made by other laptop manufacturers) *already* have less resources and hardware than a desktop. Which is precisely what you were frothing about. Are you ignorant of this, or just finding some tiny thing to hate on?

Re:Translation:

[CastrTroy]

I have a Surface 2 with Windows RT, and even though It's not getting Windows 10, it's still had way more updates than any Android device I've ever had, which is exactly the market it was competing in. I really like it and use it every day. I only wish it had more games, but other than that, it does everything I want out of a tablet. If it continues to be compatible with games made for Windows 10 app store, then that would be a huge plus. It doesn't need to have the entire operating system, just support for the apps.

I think that RT was kind of a short stop-gap solution to fix the problem of making low(er) cost Windows tablets at a time when running full Windows would have been just too expensive. Not that you can get tablets running full X86 windows for $100-$200, there's much less of a reason to continue on with Windows RT. I hope that when Windows 10 comes out, along with the next iteration of Surface, that they will have some cheaper options, perhaps without the pen and maybe a celeron/atom processor. That would probably be comparable in price to the Surface RT and Surface 2 when they came out, while at the same time allowing people to run the full version of Windows 10.

Re:Translation:

[CastrTroy]

With newer Broadwell and Skylake processors coming down the line, and a 4.5 watt chip that will run full x86 Windows, there's very little reason for Microsoft to not think that everybody will be running a full power Windows installation on every device that isn't a phone. And if they can make the phone run the same apps with minor changes, then it lets developers target the entire ecosystem with very little effort. If you could have a single code base that easily supported phones, tablets, and desktop computers, then developers might see that as a huge advantage.

Re:Translation:

[maorb]

It's not like the Windows RT based devices are losing out. Their primary limitation is the inability to install desktop apps in the first place, and almost all of the changes in Windows 10 are focused on making the desktop UI usable again. Let's take a look at some of the changes, shall we?

-Intelligently starting up to the desktop UI instead of the silly Windows 8/8.1 UI doesn't help. (MS Office and IE10/11 are the only commonly used programs you might use in the Desktop UI, everything else is an app)

-The new start menu is a desktop centric upgrade so it doesn't really apply (and by default it would open the Start Screen on a Surface device anyways, so no change from Windows 8/8.1 RT behavior for Surface RT.

-Virtual desktops don't help on a device that almost exclusively runs Windows Store apps since they tend to be full screen, switching between apps is about as difficult as switching between desktops would be.

The only thing we lose out on is the new web browser, which is so far completely untested. Basically as long as Windows 10 doesn't introduce compatibility issues with Windows store apps continuing to run on Windows 8/8.1 nothing of value has been lost by not getting an upgrade.

Re:Translation:

[c2me2]

You are completely full of shit. Somehow, Microsoft supporting multiple hardware platforms magically becomes Microsoft restricting hardware platforms! It's like you live in bizarro-land.

NT was built on MIPS, then later ported to x86 and other platforms. MIPS failed in the marketplace, so Microsoft *did what customers wanted* and stopped supporting MIPS.

Microsoft ported NT to Alpha, because that looked like the next big platform (in workstations and servers). Alpha was ridiculously expensive, both to buy and to run, and Intel advanced their processor tech enough that Intel matched and then beat Alpha performance. So customers only wanted to x86 machines. So what did EVIL MICROSOFT do? They stopped wasting time on Alpha, because the market wanted x86.

When Intel developed Itanium, which was supposed to be the Next Big Thing, Microsoft supported that 100% in Windows. Microsoft fixed all of its 32-bit-vs-64-bit bugs in Windows and in the main server apps (SQL, etc.), and supported and sold these products on Itanium. How is that restricting choice??

When AMD developed AMD64, Microsoft worked with AMD to port Windows to it. Mind you, Microsoft had to be secretive, because publicly they were still committed to Itanium, and Intel really did not want a competitor. AMD64 would never have reached the market unless Microsoft had ported Windows to run on it. You literally have Microsoft to thank for desktop 64-bit computing -- without Microsoft, AMD never would have had the support to push a new x64 chip design, and Intel would not have been forced to change their own designs to match.

"When Microsoft dominated they pushed developers towards non-cross platform development" God, you're insane. Microsoft pushed non-platform development in the sense that they pushed *THEIR OWN PLATFORM*. What the fuck is wrong with that?? I don't see Linus pushing cross-platform development across Mac, Linux, and Windows -- he pushes development on Linux, and nothing else! What the fuck is wrong with that?

Re:Translation:

[gstoddart]

As usual, you're working hard to spin things in the most negative light you can.

Honestly, it's not that hard.

ARM is a power-efficient platform, but nothing prevents Intel (or someone else) from producing a power-efficient x86/x64 platform.

And you know what, insisting on doing that basically means we're stuck with the same architectures and other baggage we've had for years. It's corporate inertia and laziness.

Love 'em or hate 'em, both iOS and Android did new things on new platforms, and did them differently -- apps became smaller, with less of a footprint, and less resource hungry. We went back to small simple things which did one thing. Microsoft will have us with a 4GB install of Office because that's all they can imagine.

The entire mentality of this is "hey, we're the big players, why the fuck should we innovate when we can keep repackaging the same crap we've been selling for years?". It's the same stuff as always, when it has the potential to be more.

My work laptop and my tablet are very different animals, with very different levels of resources, on very different platforms, and used for quite different things.

What I'm hating on is the dinosaurs who are giving us the same stuff they've always given us and acting like they're doing something cool.

I think it's utterly pathetic that Intel and Microsoft just want to repackage the desktop ... because I think that means they've missed the point, and are just trying to redefine the market to match what they do.

Which is why having a single OS for the mobile and desktop market means that Microsoft can't see past their own noses, and are refusing to do anything new and interesting. Just make sure we can have fucking spreadsheets.

No thanks. At least Apple and Google have done some new and interesting things, and changed the landscape. Microsoft is just trying to keep us firmly rooted in the 90s.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take 'just finding some tiny thing to hate on' for 1000, Alex!

Re:Translation:

[danbob999]

It's worse than that. We can bet no one will develop for Win RT and everyone will target Windows 10 instead. It's worst than Android/iPad tablets not being updated because most Android applications are compatible with devices as far as version 2.2/2.3 or 4.0 in the worst case and the same goes for iOS.

Re:Translation:

[Rob Y.]

Surface RT always felt like Microsoft actually believing the hype that they convinced stupid media outlets to spew. You know, Metro is the future - all apps will be Metro apps because it's so 'modern'. Well, it turned out that for the most part, the web is the future for the kind of apps that made Windows dominant. Metro apps compete with iOS and Android apps - i.e. simple one-screen apps that work well with a touch interface. They do not compete with web apps, and even less with traditional desktop apps - the kind deployed by businesses with decades of resources invested in them.

If Microsoft had realized that in time, they could've made RT support desktop mode, and provided a way to cross-compile WIN32 apps to run on it. And it might have succeeded. But yes, Intel hasn't been asleep, and ARM is no longer as much of a requirement for mobile devices - certainly for tablets sporting large enough batteries. Either way, the Windows desktop and backward compatibility will always be relative resource hogs, but backward compatibility is Windows biggest strength, so may as well build the devices that play to that strength. That may be enough to become relevant in mobile - even if it's not enough to become dominant...

Re:Translation:

[spire3661]

Windows 8 shrunk down enough to low end hardware that RT isnt needed. Im running Win 8.1 on a 7" tablet with 16 GB eMMC and 1 GB of ram that i bought for $59 retail.

Re:Translation:

[hairyfeet]

Actually it was announced a few weeks back (sorry I can't find the article, maybe somebody with better Google Fu?) that Intel was stopping the Intel Atom subsidy because they were taking a bath on the things and their tablets just weren't moving. The simple fact is Intel faces the same problem Apple had with PPC on the desktop, so much of the code is written for Android ARM and too few are willing to port to X86 ARM that they just couldn't get any traction.

With Intel no longer dumping product in the channel I have a feeling sub 12 inch X86 tablets are gonna go the way of the 8 track, all you'll get is 12 inch convertibles. This is fine by me, the fact that so many 7 and 10 inch tablets still come with only 512Mb of RAM is retarded but the key is gonna be getting a decent Windows 10-12 inch convertible at a price point to really compete against the low end tablets, say $100-$150 with $100 being a Win 10 Atom dual with 2GB of RAM and $150 being the quad 2GB?

Re:Translation:

[spire3661]

Dude, ubiquity and compatibility over new and shiny. ARM SUCCKKKKKSSSSSSSS compared to x86 in these areas. Shrunk down x86 is a MUCH smarter path, even with all the cruft.

Re:Translation:

[tlhIngan]

Like they dumped CE

Windows CE is still around, actually.

Windows Embedded Compact is the new name for Windows CE - it's confusing as hell since it's similar to Windows Embedded (which is based off standard Windows), but the "Compact" (or "Automotive") version is Windows CE.

it was this way since Windows CE 7 which was renamed to Windows Embedded Compact 7. (Now they're at Compact 2013)

Re:Translation:

[MightyYar]

I'm not sure why anyone would mourn the worthless abortion that was Windows RT.

Most of MS's initial attempts are "worthless abortions". I was hoping that they would stick with it in the boneheaded way that they always do to provide another competitive option. You see iOS and Android borrow from MS and from each other. I mourn the loss of competition, not the product itself.

And no, I don't consider the full-blown Surface to be real competition for most Android tablets. It's in the price range of the iPads, but has half the battery life. You have to actually need Windows in order for it to be an attractive option. Interface design is subjective, but the necessity to flip between tablet-land and the traditional desktop seriously hurts usability IMHO. Both Android and iOS are simpler.

Re:Translation:

[Isca]

Wait --- your argument has turned into how iOS and Android are doing more with smaller less resource hungry systems?

Tell that to the plethora of users with phones less than two years old who can't run iOS 8 or the newest Android builds because of changes to the underlying OS. This also includes the tons of apps that companies are making that won't run on older versions of their OS's and are growing in size.

There are plenty of things to bitch about with Microsoft's decisions but I don't think their decision to use the same underlying OS is one of them. In fact, running windows 8.1 on an old machine works better than running windows 7 on an old machine because they've been optimizing the system to work well with less memory.

Microsoft has found that the market doesn't want ARM machines because there's a chance that they want to run xyz old software that they are familiar with. I say good for them! Adapting that internal app that has worked for 25 years to a tablet is great for xyz company who is not primarily an IT company.

It comes down to this:
Microsoft is a large company who wants to protect their income stream, which is office and lately, the cloud.
Apple is a large company who wants to protect their income streams in both the app store and keeping a constant hardware upgrade cycle intact.
Google just wants your eyeballs and to know everything about you, which means they need to have cheap and easy to use software that can be implemented by everyone as their main focus.

Everyone has their own motivations, and THAT competition is good for the rest of us.

Re:Translation:

[gstoddart]

I was really hoping they could throw away the cruft and start fresh, like Android and iOS did.

The way forward isn't slavishly doing the same thing you've been doing for 25+ years.

To me, this just entrenches that we're stuck with every bit of crap baggage Microsoft has been carting around, and that they will essentially keep doing the exact same thing.

So, I like them for a desktop or a server ... but I think they're going to fail miserably for mobile devices.

Essentially they're just going to ram through the iceberg instead of doing anything innovative. I honestly question if Microsoft could write an OS from scratch like Android.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Like they dumped CE

Windows CE, a.k.a. Windows Mobile, a.k.a. Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5?

Did you mean that "dumped" = "still supported after its intended replacement goes EOL"? WinEH 6.5 is supported until 2020 (source). Windows Phone 7 was supposed to be its replacement, and it has been EOL'ed (back in October). Windows Phone 8/8.1 will be EOL'ed in 2017. (Source for those last two)

I wouldn't call that "dumped".

Re:Translation:

[MightyYar]

Is that the iView? My understanding is that there is a battery life penalty. 2/3 to 1/2 that of a comparable ARM system.

Re:Translation:

[MightyMartian]

Except that mobile devices like phones and tablets are fundamentally different than PCs. Microsoft already tried this stunt with Windows 8, and got smacked down hard.

Re:Translation:

[mrchaotica]

AMD64 would never have reached the market unless Microsoft had ported Windows to run on it.

I don't believe that. Since x86-64 is backwards-compatible to 32-bit OSs, It would have been just fine for AMD to release it running 32-bit Windows. It was still as faster processor, after all, whether it was running in 64-bit mode or not.

Then customer demand would have forced Microsoft to provide x86-64 support, Intel's wishes be damned.

In fact, the way I remember it, that's pretty much what happened. The first x86-64 chips came out in 2003, but Windows XP Pro 64-bit didn't come out until 2005. Even then, and most desktop users with 64-bit CPUs continued using 32-bit XP and didn't switch to 64-bit Windows until Vista (2007) or even 7 (2009). (I distinctly remember dual-booting 64-bit Linux and 32-bit WinXP for several years...)

Re:Translation:

[unixisc]

I think that by non cross-platform development, GP means that Microsoft forced their own developers to focus only on Wintel. For the time that they were available, Microsoft could have released complete versions of Office on the MIPS and the Alpha.

MIPS and Alpha failed due to a lack of native applications. Now, remember, Microsoft writes a few of those - like Office, and they could have given it a start. Like Office, Visual Studio, Money, and a few others. But they didn't. The only Office that ever saw it to the Alpha was Word and Excel: Access, which could have benefited, didn't get it. Nor were all Alphas expensive: there were Alpha clonemakers like DeskStation, Carrera, Microway, Aspen, et al selling Alphastations. Similarly, NeTpower and DeskStation sold MIPS workstations as well running NT.

The thing that enabled Intel to succeed was the fact that NT is, in addition to being ported to all these CPUs, also multi-processing. So Intel, once it got a big process advantage over others like DEC, HP, NEC, et al, could start throwing multiple cores at the CPU, and NT would have no issues supporting it. So on a price level, even a quad core would be equivalent to a PA-RISC, and when you toss in the overall cost of systems, it's a no-brainer. The main reason to buy an Alpha over an Intel was performance, but SMP enabled Intel to catch up. On top of that, companies like HP, SGI, Compaq (after it had digested DEC) all jumped on the Itanic bandwagon and abandoned PA-RISC, MIPS and Alpha, so that those architectures were abandoned, even though the Itanic never proved worthy of replacing them. The Intel Core architecture won by default as a result.

Re:Translation:

[spire3661]

IN this particular case the device only has a 3000mah battery.It runs for about 5 hours. Its a Winbook Tw700. Honestly i use it as a 'presence' device so i can get into networks i manage so battery life wasnt a concern for me.

Re:Translation:

[squiggleslash]

Well, Apple is running a modified OS X on its iDevices, and Android is Linux based. Now, before you state the obvious: in both cases, the primary userland, that is, the userland that you're interacting with right now, is a stripped down power-optimized version.

And that's true of Windows 8.1 if you use the Metro UI too. Yes, OK, the desktop stuff is there, it's on "disk", ready to be swapped into memory if you want to run it, but it's not actually active in any serious way, it's waiting for a mouse click that isn't coming. Start your task manager now if you don't believe me, and take a look at the CPU usage of, say, Explorer (explorer.exe). 0%? That's because you're not doing anything with it. You're reading this web page.

I'm guessing that if I were running one of those "Ubuntu under Android" things that you can get for Android (I've never tried them as every device I've had had some kind of hardware issue preventing it from being likely to work, and the descriptions have always suggested they suck anyway...) I'd also see next to no increase in power usage, after starting it but not actually launching any X11 applications, despite that literally being an entire desktop operating system running on a phone, with all the components being in place.

So there really aren't any power implications when it comes to Microsoft shipping a full version of Windows for power saving devices, as long as - and they do - Microsoft includes a power efficient UI (Metro) for the tasks you'll be using the device for.

The only real reason for Microsoft not to ship their desktop OS on phones is that it takes up way too much disk space. As in "That 32G you get with an HP Stream 8 sounds sweet, but actually Windows takes up about around 20G of it, so get ready to buy an SD card straight away."

That really is it. I'm using that very device. Battery life is pretty ordinary for a tablet. I've seen much worse.

Re:Translation:

[bmajik]

RT has desktop mode.

It's patently untrue that the web is the future for "the kinds of apps that made windows dominant"

Actually, windows was dominant for every kind of app. The growth in apps of all sectors - LOB, entertainment, etc -- is on devices, and people regularly pan device apps that are just thin shells around a browser control.

People want native apps on their devices. MDD (multi-device-development) is something enterprise is very interested in -- they need to deal with a BYOD workforce, and they always want to economize on IT spend.

If it had been feasible to make Win32 apps run well on ARM, don't you think we would have done that?

The most insightful thing you wrote is this:

"But yes, Intel hasn't been asleep, and ARM is no longer as much of a requirement for mobile devices"

Consider the following -- and note that while I work at MS, I am neither privy to, nor attempting to disclose -- any high level strategy

1) Microsoft delivers a lot of value to enterprise customers because of app compat
2) think back a few years at what the CPU landscape looked like -- think about the power consumption of Intel's offerings. Remember, there was no ATOM yet.
3) app compat, battery life, performance -- if you don't have a low-power native x86 processor, you can only get two of these at a time.
4) Enterprise customers want all three
5) Intel, years ago, didn't appear to have any intention to deliver a low-cost, low power x86 part
6) this meant that MS would be unable to deliver low cost, new form factor mobile devices that could still run legacy software
7) this would force a wedge between new form factors and the Microsoft platform advantages (great compatability)

Clearly, what needed to happen is that something had to convince intel to develop a low cost, low power, good performing x86 chip

Based on 20+ years history, considering ARM, AMD, dec Alpha, etc, what makes intel innovate well and do its best work?

A credible marketplace threat to Wintel.

Claim: The purpose of Windows+ARM was to force intel to develop a low-power, low-cost x86 chip. If Windows+ARM took off in its own right, great. But the main purpose has been to secure a $99 x86 windows tablet -- which means that enterprises have the price points and form factors they want, and the app compat they need.

Exhibit A:
http://www.amazon.com/HP-Strea...

I happen to like my RT tablet -- but the Surface Pro is a credible do-it-all device, and now software that runs on the Pro is the same software that runs on your $99 HP tablet and your $4999 gaming rig.

Back when windows+ARM started, the intel hardware to allow that continuum didn't exist.

As I said -- nobody at MS tells me how things really go down. But this is a high stakes game. The people at MS aren't stupid.

Re:Translation:

[CastrTroy]

I'll give you the distinction on a phone, but on a tablet, I'm really not so sure. What is the fundamental difference between an ultrabook, a Surface Pro, or a more traditional tablet. Sure I'll admit that as you move toward smaller tablets like 7 inch ones, running a full desktop OS becomes cumbersome, but you have to admit that there are some advantages to being able to run a full desktop application on your tablet in a pinch. Sure you'd want to be using tablet focused apps most of the time, but it's nice to know that if you only have your tablet on you, you can still do things like quickly edit an Excel or Word file with real MS Office. You wouldn't want to make huge edits, but just small little annotations would be great.

As you move up to larger tablets, like 10 inch and above, Android and iOS really start to show their lack of features because they don't let you run multiple apps at the same time, and they don't let you do things like mount network drives that every application can have access to. They don't come with standard USB ports, so you can't just plug in a USB stick, printer, camera, or other devices without using special dongles, and most likely they won't have drivers for things like printers anyway.

Re:Translation:

[spire3661]

"The way forward isn't slavishly doing the same thing you've been doing for 25+ years."

You dont throw away what works just because its old. Shrunken x86 is still better then the best ARM designs. ARM will NEVER be better than Intel at making chips, they dont have the R&D that Intel does.Intel is not not going to fail miserably for mobile devices, the 8" windows tablets that are out right now are KILLER,. My Android TV Nexus Player runs Intel as well. Dell makes intel Android tablets. Bay Trail is absolutely LIGHT YEARS ahead of the best ARM designs, even Apple's A8X.

You should be blown away by what Intel has been able to accomplish, rather than lament an inferior design should win.

Re:Translation:

[spire3661]

One last thing, Google BOUGHT Android, it didnt write it from scratch. I loathe MS as much as the next BOFH, but saying they couldnt build an OS from scratch is quite frankly, asinine. The biggest problem MS ever had was their own success makes it hard for them to move when they want to.

Re:Translation:

[MightyMartian]

The difference between a 10" screen and, say, a 15" is a tough call, though I still think 10" is too big for a Metro style interface. Bump up to the 17"-22" monitors, and Metro is just a horrific experience that makes Windows 3.1 look like an ultra-modern GUI.

Like I said, Microsoft already tried it. It was a disaster. They're not going to try it again.

Re:Translation:

[SternisheFan]

From linked article below:

Microsoft is gambling: it is trading short-term PC sales and putting PC partners on hold in the interests of long-term adoption of Windows 10.

As we've written here before, offering free products in today’s climate of low-price but fully functioning devices is the way to grow market share.

Microsoft needs market share for two reasons: to make decent money from Windows 10 licenses at some point in the future and get more Windows 10 devices in the field that let people swallow subscription cloud services, like Office 365.

It’s a risky play that won’t just put a hole in Microsoft’s short-term earnings but will put PC partners further out in the cold and delay the PC industry’s recovery. Microsoft is gambling on the fact that most businesses now on Windows 7 will want Windows 10 in the next 12 months.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

Free Windows 10 could mean DOOM for Microsoft and the PC biz The Register

Re:Translation:

[ADRA]

Who cares about architecture when the OS platform and the development tooling around them are becoming more relevant? Android uses Java for almost everything, and IOS has its own toolchains that aren't portable, so the real problem is that the mobile development experience is largely siloed.

The only Android X86 product I've used is Nexus Player, which works fine for at least the cases that I use it on, and the few programs I've used from the side-loaded Android world work fine (it also has some form of ARM compat, so maybe a lousy example). The problem is that the VAST majority of X86 based devices are running windows, and on mobile, basically nobobdy cares anymore about microsoft. Its all Android / IOS regardless of how amazing a single piece of hardware is.

At least RIM woke up and started supporting Android apps, but even now, it may be too little too late (by like 4 years) for them. Microsoft's business is to make money from its OS, and doesn't seem to settle for app-space innovations, so they'll continue to be an also-run in mobile till they finally give up or somehow peak the next market hotness, but that seems more of a coin toss.

Re:Translation:

[petermgreen]

RT has desktop mode.

AIUI the original plan was not to have it at all but they couldn't get office converted to metro in time so they included the desktop mode but crippled it by forbidding desktop apps other than the handful bundled with the OS (a cut down version of office, some of the built in windows tools).

The only reason I can see for crippling the desktop mode on the arm port was pushing developers to switch to metro.

Would windows on arm have succeeded if people could just recompile their software for it rather than having to redesign their software to fit within the constraints of metro and then on top of that pay a 30% appstore fee to MS? We will never know for sure but I strongly suspect it would have had a better chance than in the crippled state it was sold in.

Re:Translation:

[MightyYar]

Whatever the battery life, the idea of a $60 computer that can run full-blown windows still kind of blows my mind. I remember when my co-workers and I would come back from Asia with Librettos because we thought they were so mind-blowingly small. :)

Re:Translation:

[Dragonslicer]

Except that mobile devices like phones and tablets are fundamentally different than PCs.

No they aren't. Current phones and tablets are still von Neumann computers. If they have ARM processors instead of x86/amd64 processors, then the different instruction set is handled by the C compiler. The only significant difference is the user interface, but writing multiple interfaces for the same software shouldn't be an overly complicated problem.

Re:Translation:

[davester666]

Just like WinPhone 7.5. "We'll reskin the homescreen UI so it looks like you have WinPhone 8. That's good enough, right?"

Re:Translation:

[triffid_98]

I think that RT was kind of a short stop-gap solution to fix the problem of making low(er) cost Windows tablets at a time when running full Windows would have been just too expensive. Not that you can get tablets running full X86 windows for $100-$200, there's much less of a reason to continue on with Windows RT.

I think costs may have been part of it but the bigger issue was battery life. Now that Intel has fully fledged x86 chips that are quite close on power consumption there's no longer any reason to settle for the RT 'port' that still won't run half the software users are expecting to 'just work'.

...the fact that easily 3/4 of these things are rocking 32gb of flash memory certainly isn't helping either. Lets see, we have windows RT, one or two other big applications and...we're out of space. You do have that handy SD slot but that doesn't help because you still can't install apps on it.

Re:Translation:

[dj245]

Actually it was announced a few weeks back (sorry I can't find the article, maybe somebody with better Google Fu?) that Intel was stopping the Intel Atom subsidy because they were taking a bath on the things and their tablets just weren't moving. The simple fact is Intel faces the same problem Apple had with PPC on the desktop, so much of the code is written for Android ARM and too few are willing to port to X86 ARM that they just couldn't get any traction.

With Intel no longer dumping product in the channel I have a feeling sub 12 inch X86 tablets are gonna go the way of the 8 track, all you'll get is 12 inch convertibles. This is fine by me, the fact that so many 7 and 10 inch tablets still come with only 512Mb of RAM is retarded but the key is gonna be getting a decent Windows 10-12 inch convertible at a price point to really compete against the low end tablets, say $100-$150 with $100 being a Win 10 Atom dual with 2GB of RAM and $150 being the quad 2GB?

I think the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 10" is pretty compelling. There are Android (x86) and Windows 8.1 models. The Android one is $249 with a 16GB of storage and no keyboard, and the Windows one is $369 with 32GB of space and a detachable bluetooth keyboard. All the other hardware is the same between the two models- 10.1" IPS touchscreen at 1920x1200, 2GB of RAM, MicroSD slot accepting XDSC cards, and dual-band 802.11abgn.

I wanted a tablet with a high-resolution screen, 5GHz networking (2.4Ghz is completely saturated in my apartment), a proper multitasking OS, and a small form factor because I travel frequently for business. The Windows version is pretty much the perfect device for my needs. I prefer Android for phones but for a general-computing device, it isn't for me. Will something like this ever get near $100-150? I won't say it will never happen but there is a definite line between "toy" tablets with low-resolution screens, limited RAM, and poor battery life, and something that people would actually want to use on a daily basis. Despite the availability of very cheap tablets in recent years, the line between "toy" and "actually OK to use" hasn't shown any sign of getting less than $200-$250.

I really hope 8 and 10" x86 tablets stick around, because they are the perfect size for using on a plane, on the couch, or in bed. 12" is too large and heavy for my uses.

Re:Translation:

[Howitzer86]

I remember this too. Wasn't compatibility the main reason for sticking to 32 bit Windows XP on a 64 bit system? A big reason I remember is that if you didn't have more than 4 GB of ram you wouldn't see a benefit, and at the time, 2 GB was still huge. Actually, 2 GB was the limitation most 32 bit software had because you needed to flip the /3GB switch in boot.ini, and even then the software had to be compiled a certain way to be large address aware.

At the time, AMD was known for having the faster processor at a lower price. 64 bit version or not, people and businesses were buying these things like crazy back then.

Re:Translation:

[Isca]

I think hybrid laptops are going to become more ubiquitous in the future, and some of them may even be as large as 17 inches.

But have you ever seen a family use a all in one pc device? Even though most of us find it easier to use a mouse/keyboard,I've sat and watched family members who bought one of those larger 21 inch all in one gateways sit at the desk, use the keyboard or mouse to open up their email, then flip over to a web page and start flicking their way through links by touching instead of using the scroll mouse.

When Intel's UWB wireless monitors hit mainstream I think we'll even see more of this - you might pick up that monitor off it's cradle and sit in the comfy easy chair across the room and use it as a giant 20 inch tablet. Not to mention artists who might lay it flat to draw on it. I think the next unsaid interim step for that will be the kinect for windows. Late last year Kinect they started talking with manufacturers about building kinect into monitors & tv's for Windows 10. We might see those designs by christmas or early next year. I don't want an xbox but I wouldn't mind having a kinect interface with the TV for accessing channels and such ala a tivo or roku interface.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting something rather major. Microsoft never released emulation layers that would allow 32-bit Intel/NT binaries to run on RISC/NT platforms. The only platform that had such an emulator/translator was the Alpha (FX!32), and that's because DEC developed one. This meant that very little modern software was available for the MIPS/NT and PowerPC/NT platforms. Another factor was price. Both IBM and DEC slapped extremely high price tags on their RISC workstations and PCs. E.g., $8,000 to $9,000 for an IBM PowerPC workstation, or $5,000 to $10,000 for DEC Alpha PCs.

By contrast, when Apple transitioned from Motorola 68K CPUs to IBM/Motorola PowerPC CPUs, they included a 68K emulator in the PowerPC version of Mac OS, and they priced the new PowerPC Macs consistently with their predecessors (at around $2,000 to $3,000 base price, if I recall correctly). The result of their easing the transition was that their customers followed.

Re:Translation:

[drinkypoo]

I remember this too. Wasn't compatibility the main reason for sticking to 32 bit Windows XP on a 64 bit system?

Well, sort of. The main problem was that XP64 was a festering pile of ass. But yeah, compatibility was a big problem; you couldn't just use your XP32 drivers, and a lot of manufacturers didn't bother to release a 64-bit driver for their hardware.

Re:Translation:

[Nikker]

It makes sense for Microsoft to bide their time until they can just run everything on an X86. Why when Intel is only a couple of years away from making a (barely) suitable tablet processor would they commit to 2 architectures. Microsoft knows the tablet/portable arena is the way forward and the PC is just the bread that sops up the gravy, if they wait it out a bit they will have 1 install base rather than ARM vs X86.

Re:Translation:

[dbIII]

Free Windows 10 could mean DOOM for Microsoft

I'm not so sure. Half the planet or more had free Windows XP and MS stayed up. For example, Iraq was under trade sanctions but nearly every PC in the country had Microsoft stuff on it. Complex bulk licence deal

s in countries that take copyright seriously is probably where a lot of their vast cash supply is coming from. I don't see things like this win10 situation changing any of those five year or whatever bulk licence deals.

Re:Translation:

[guacamole]

A little correction. In the last few years, Alpha hardware wasn't being updated, but nobody was beating Alpha when it was alive and developed. Once Compaq bought DEC, they simply let Alpha die on the vine. Compaq, a very x86-centric company, had not interest in proprietary Unix/RISC solution. They apparently bought DEC simply for the DEC customer's contact book.

Re:Translation:

[hairyfeet]

Depends on what you require to move from your definition of "toy". if its IPS? Give it up Chuck, the simple fact is IPS screens are expensive to build and it doesn't look like they will ever get the economies of scale on their side. i have a feeling they will end up going the way of plasma and all you'll get sub $600 is TN.

But as far as performance goes? Hell my 2011 AMD 12 inch netbook does 1080P over HDMI and before MSFT stupidly killed the platform with Windows pricing I picked that up for like $230 and the nice thing about those are its trivial to upgrade them to 8GB which I did. I have also messed with ARM quads with 1GB of RAM in the $120 range that were great performers and there really is no reason they couldn't make the same thing with an Atom quad for the same price and have an Atom dual version sub $99. Frankly the only thing in the BOM that is keeping sub $99 tablets from being toys is the high cost of RAM ATM, the price of RAM falls again and that major bottleneck could disappear overnight. I've tried virtually identical tablets with 512mb and 1GB and it makes all the difference in the world but LDDR 3 ain't cheap.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

You said is something enterprise is very interested in -- they need to deal with a BYOD workforce, The BYOD workforce is marketing bullshit. You cannot have BYOD devices connected to a secured environment. You have no control over the device so you have no security of the device. At least data will leak into the personal environment of that device. If you need to be PCI or HIPPA compliant you will not make it with BYOD devices on the network. (Yes I do compliance work for a living.) BYOD=EPICFAIL.

You said and the Microsoft platform advantages (great compatability) WTF?? Great compatability???? Yea maybe with "other" MS products but not with the rest of the world. Not all systems on the Internet run MS actually most run Linux these days. MS every since its connection to the Internet as done everything is can to pervert open standard protocls that run the Internet to try to make it MS only. Look at the lack of sticking to standards in IE. You have to break you site in order to run in IE. You know the shit you see on shitty sites that say "Viewed best in Internet Exploder". What about Kerbous? You use it with AD but it isn't to the standard. Remember MS DID NOT INVENT IT! You just broke it so my Linux machine will not join your domain. Your answer to this is "Run Windows".

You sound like it is up to Intel to fix your shit. Its not Intel's fault you OS is bloated and is not modular enough to strip it down to run on less powered hardware. You don't see this problem with Linux.

You talk about issues with running 32 bit apps. Dude it has only been until recently Win7 that MS has been able to build a stable 64 bit OS yet Linux has been running 64 bit for years. Even with your 32 bit apps they are so bloated they are power hogs. (Yes when the HD light goes blinky blinky you are using power... lots of power.)

I know you work there but the world does not run on MS. Do not ever use the word "compatability" and MS in the same sentence when refering to anything Internet connected. On a "Windows Network" yes but the Internet is NOT a Windows network.

Re:Translation:

[lightbounce]

I agree with you that the real reason for RT was that Intel wasn't delivering low-cost, low-power chips that could compete with ARM (I have a friend who works at Microsoft who says the same thing).

But the point of RT wasn't that Intel wouldn't produce a chip for mobile, it's that they couldn't. Intel has always recognized the huge growing market for mobile, and they always wanted to produce procecessors for it.

But the x86 architecture has a lot of stuff in it (compatibility modes, security protections, etc.) that just aren't needed in mobile devices but it's hard to strip them out. It also needed a lot of power management stuff added on. As a result, for any given fab process an ARM chip would be cheaper and use less energy than a x86 chip. Intel's answer was to use their superior cutting edge fab technology that wasn't available to competitors to produce a competitive chip. However, their latest fab technology was delayed until just a few months ago, and their previous fab technology didn't give them enough of an edge.

As it is, ARM chips manufactured by Samsung and TSMC are only only one step behind Intel today in fab technology. Given how hard it is now to reduce the size (as evidenced by the unexpected year-long delay for Intel to get its latest fab technology ready), it's not clear that in the future Intel will be able to maintain its lead before everybody else catches up sooner or later.

Re:Translation:

[Rob Y.]

You may not think the web is the future for business apps, but let me tell you - as an employee at a company that's in the process of rewriting some huge fat-client apps for the web, it is. Not for everything, of course. Nobody's going to do video production in a web app. But just about any database-centric app will work better as a web app than as a fat client desktop app - without the support nightmares that desktop apps bring to the mix.

And saying that RT has desktop mode is willfully ignoring my point. It doesn't have desktop mode for 3rd party developers - and the lock-in of 3rd party developers to WIN32 API's is the only reason Windows remains so successful. I maintain one of those apps, and i'd be glad to port it to WIN32 ARM, but MS won't let me. The last thing I want to do is rewrite it for Metro. I'd much rather rewrite it as a web app. Of course, WIN32 isn't going anywhere, so I'm not going to have to rewrite it at all...

Like I said, only the MS lapdog sector of the tech media ever believed that Metro was going to replace WIN32. That's not to say Metro might not be better than WIN32, but MS of all companies ought to know that installed base and backward compatibility trumps new and better every time.

didn't they say

[sirber]

one os for all devices?

Re:didn't they say

[OzPeter]

one os for all devices?

And now they are starting to burn the evidence that one particular class of devices ever existed. In another year we'll all be saying "RT, what was that?"

Re:didn't they say

[Anonymous Coward]

Tablets will use x86 and full Win10.

Re:didn't they say

[wjcofkc]

I'm sure it will be quite the opposite in Oceania.

Re:didn't they say

[Totenglocke]

Didn't MS say that they were going to roll RT and Windows Phone into one OS for a "mobile" version of Windows 10?

Re:didn't they say

[unixisc]

Maybe Windows Phone 10 will be the version for Surface RT toys?

Not surprising

[daninaustin]

MS has a habit of abandoning devices. Maybe that's a reason so few people want their phones.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

That parent, right there.

As a developer, this is the one thing that pisses me off about microsoft the most. Wasted time and effort developing an app for a specific platform only for it to be dumped (the language, the OS version or device range).

Though if you used something like unity, it's less painful as you can retarget other platforms I suppose.

Re:Not surprising

[Pope Hagbard]

On the other hand, Android mfrs tend to either provide just 1-2 updates or not at all, and those phones sell pretty well.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea I doubt updates are the reasons people aren't buying WinMo.

Re:Not surprising

[DerekLyons]

Seriously? So does Apple, and pretty much every other hardware manufacturer out there.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Because their new phones offer updated versions of Android. If Microsoft was offering Surface RT 2 with Windows 10 and not offering updates for Surface RT, people would complain about it but there'd still be people purchasing them. Because that at least offers an upgrade path. With the Surface RT? Use it until it breaks, enough apps you want stop being developed for it, or it gets so loaded with malware because there's no security updates or no new anti-virus definitions or whatever--admittedly, that last one is much more psychological than actually real since the Surface RT is such a small market share its simply a non-target mostly.

See, the overall point isn't that one has to support the same hardware. It's that one has to maintain the same software environment. Hell, it'd be enough if Surface Pro supported RT apps through some emulation layer. People would quickly migrate most apps to native versions and there'd be little complaint--just like with how Microsoft migrated people from MS-DOS over many years. But when you know that the RT platform is going to be dead in a couple years, tops, you don't tend to focus on maintaining or even porting your long-term programs to the platform unless your focus is to port to all platforms of the moment. Well, yea, then there's little reason to even consider those apps as any sort of lock-in or killer app because they're available near everywhere.

Android 2.1 as a target? Still works for most everyone.

Re:Not surprising

[danbob999]

Android provides incremental updates. Microsoft tend to break the compatibility either completely (like from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7) or mostly (like from Windows Phone 7 to 8, and now 8 to 10). Android updates are comparable to updates from WP7 to 7.5 to 7.8 or 8 to 8.1

Re:Not surprising

[Blaskowicz]

RT a.k.a. Metro is an emulation layer already? it's about running touchy apps on .NET, or html/javascript. So the compatibilty seems easy and they can quietly update a few things behind the scene (.NET version, Metro/RT libraries)

Re:Not surprising

[danbob999]

Not on the same scale. Most Android/iOS apps still work on tablets from 3-4 years ago. Apps developped next year (Windows 10) likely won't run on Windows RT devices sold this year. Just like WP7 apps didn't run on WinMo devices sold the day before.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing that might have something to do with the fact that they aren't Windows Phones. People like them and they don't typically need many updates to begin with, that might be contributing to sales.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

They abandoned these because people said they didn't want them. After people claimed they would want them even knowing that they would never run all their current Windows software. This isn't MS's fault. They listened to what we told them we wanted. We just have no clue what we want.

Re:Not surprising

[JackieBrown]

Most apps are not dependent on the updated android OS version so it's less of an issue. I had a windows 5 phone bought when windows 6 phones were already out. Shame on me for not doing my homework, but almost every app I was interested in required (not preferred) Windows 6.

Re:Not surprising

[DogDude]

I get a new phone every two years. I just picked up my third Windows Phone the other day. An OS, yes, I'd like supported for a decade or so. A phone? Meh. I'll grab a new one every few years, and get the new software along with it. I haven't felt like they've abandoned my phones at all.

Re:Not surprising

[Kurrelgyre]

Applications built with the WinRT API deploy to Windows on Intel just as well, and that's the only API that was available on the devices not getting Windows 10.

Re:Not surprising

[hairyfeet]

Interesting? Really mods? Who was it that abandoned their not even 2 year old OS? Oh yeah that was GOOGLE, who still patches their 4 year old Windows 7 phones? MSFT. Maybe you are talking about Zune, whose software runs fine on Windows 10 even though they haven't sold Zunes in years?

Sorry but you got your companies wrong, its Google that drops support without warning, see the 970 million plus that are now vulnerable to exploit for just one of many examples.

Re:Not surprising

[Just Some Guy]

I can't speak to Android, but Apple still supports and issues updates to the three year old iPhone 4S. Microsoft sometimes just walks away from stuff.

Re:Not surprising

[thegarbz]

The key difference is Android isn't broken out of the box. Windows RT was. People are tolerating the device hoping things will change whereas on the flip side many Android users don't want to change.

I'm hotly anticipating the next version of Windows to fix the clusterfuck that is 8.1 I'm sure the people with Windows gimp edition errr I mean RT were anticipating it even more.

Re:Not surprising

[Pope Hagbard]

Android back around 2.0/2.1 was fairly crap out of the box. It got better, but it was overall inferior to iOS when I got my old Droid.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, mostly. MS seems to have gone out of their way to create a "Windows Store App" standard for C++ and some graphics libraries, a trimmed down .NET, or a special html/javascript that should make porting from trivial (presuming you don't go heavy on ARM optimizations) to unnecessary (the latter two should just work). So, you're right in the sense that there's a (mostly) trivial migration path.

I guess too trivial would be the answer since it means there's virtually no killer app(lication) for a Surface RT that would warrant a new iteration when the Surface Pro does (almost?) all it does plus more. Meanwhile, the Surface Pro is more of a laptop and while it can compete there, the RT is an overly expensive tablet and not well suited to attract attention in the space. So, there's no real niche for the RT. Perhaps, in truth, that's the biggest problem MS has. They've got a solution in search of a problem. It's little wonder they quickly abandon such projects.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

If you buy your phone straight from google, you get updates right away and plenty of them. Also the phone isn't laden with third-party crapware and spyware (or perhaps I should say additional spyware, as you can't really escape google's eye, but that is true more-or-less universally).

Re:Not surprising

[TheGratefulNet]

careful, there! EVERYONE abandons phones. for some god damed reason, its a truth. MS, google and apple all abandon their mobile platforms way too quickly. none are knights in shining armor, here. they all suck and are all bad players, forcing re-re-rebuying of perfectly good hardware.

regular pc's don't get EOL'd so quickly (at least with linux and even with windows, support is quite long). apple eol's things universally too fast, but apple sucks and people already know this and expect it from apple.

its a big lie that google keeps android updated. the SOURCE CODE, yes, but not for PLATFORMS. the platform groups have the shortest attention span of any company I have ever seen. amazingly short. I don't trust google or android after having such a bad time with that whole scene.

I know the least about MS phones but they seem to have the same EOL'ing problem everyone else has.

phones suck. I hate phones. wish the 'portable computer' (which is NOT phones!) market would have gone another way.

Re:Not surprising

[Pope Hagbard]

If. Most people don't buy Nexi.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget "Plays for Shit."

Re:Not surprising

[steelfood]

A phone is not a tablet. For most people, phones get replaced once every two years. While tablets are not like computers who have a lifetime of upwards of 7 years, they're in between, around 4 or 5.

And the developer base is different too. The moment Vista came out, people began migrating their applications off XP. But developers were until fairly recently still developing with Gingerbread in mind.

Re:Not surprising

[Pope Hagbard]

I think you'll find that Android tablets are just as poorly-supported for updates as phones.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple isn't any better in this regard.

Re:Not surprising

[dbIII]

Maybe you are talking about Zune, whose software runs fine on Windows 10 even though they haven't sold Zunes in years?

They must be keeping it alive until the next leap year to see if it falls over again or not :)
Perhaps I shouldn't joke about this because I've never even seen a Zune so it's leap year bug gave me nothing but amusement and a feeling of smug superiority over developers that couldn't even get a fucking clock right.

Re:Not surprising

[Blaskowicz]

Indeed that's what happened to Silverlight, they built a better Flash than Flash but people weren't interested.
RT may live on (as runtime not OS) for some people who want to run tablet/phone apps as long as they don't miss the one for the train company, the bank and so on.

Re:Not surprising

[hairyfeet]

Uhhhh...you DO know MSFT didn't actually WRITE that software, right? That all they did was stick their brand on it, yes? The Zune was nothing but the Toshiba Beat that MSFT licensed and just stuck their name on it. Its no different than how a "Korean Fender" is nothing but a Samick with a Fender sticker slapped on the neck.

Final nail in the 32-bit coffin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we finally stop compiling for this particularly ancient architecture now?

Re:Final nail in the 32-bit coffin?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unlikely. The effective death of Windows RT only affects some 32-bit ARM devices, of which there are still about a zillion in the field, and more rolling off the production line as we speak(and likely to continue to be for some time to come, unless ARM Ltd. decides to piss off every customer who cares about cheap CPUs and has no need to even touch the boundaries of a 4GB memory space.

The non-RT 'Surface Pro' devices were 64 bit x86s from the start(though there were a few devices that shipped with 64 bit CPUs and 32 bit OSes because Intel didn't have some feature working quite right in 64 bits at the time); but are unaffected, so irrelevant in any case.

This will also have no effect on systems that either have 32-bit Atoms, or 32-bit UEFI(will 64 bit Windows boot from that? it certainly caused a schism among mac models at one point), which are all x86.

You are certainly getting safer as time goes on in ignoring 32 bit OSes, especially x86; but this announcement will have no effect.

Re:Final nail in the 32-bit coffin?

[maorb]

Umm... you can stop compiling for ARMv7 based Windows RT...
MS in their infinite wisdom is still making an x86 based Windows 10 version so you can't just start developing everything as 64-bit just yet.

Okay, I actually think it was a good idea for MS to keep a 32-bit version of Win10, but only to give the poor Win8.1 32-bit users a chance to upgrade to something with a usable desktop. I don't foresee the same need with a hypothetical Windows 11, so maybe this will be the last time we ever see a 32-bit Windows release?

Re:Final nail in the 32-bit coffin?

[spire3661]

Why?

Re:Final nail in the 32-bit coffin?

[MightyMartian]

I have my doubts that a "zillion" RT devices are floating around out there, unless you mean in a warehouse somewhere.

Re:Final nail in the 32-bit coffin?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Ah, that was ambiguous. I meant that there are zillions of 32-bit ARM devices in the field. Only a hilariously tiny percentage of those are RT devices; but given the absurdly gigantic number of ARM architecture CPUs shipped, and the fact that 64-bit ARM is still very new and a relatively modestly player even in higher end stuff(much less the 'just a bit more than a microcontroller' market, where it probably never will be, I'm assuming that 32-bit ARM is going to be sticking around for a good while yet. RT, Not So Much.

Re:Final nail in the 32-bit coffin?

[OhPlz]

Having to create and maintain only one build is better than two. It would also force software companies to develop for 64 bits. If MS dropped 32 bit support, maybe we'd finally get a 64 bit version of Visual Studio that doesn't drop dead when you hit over 3GB in use. Is Firefox even 64 bit on windows yet (the main version, not a dev branch)? There's no reason for most of us to have 32 bit support on our PCs anymore, and dropping it would convince some stragglers to finally release their software in 64 bit form.

So let's get started on 128 bit systems..

Re:Final nail in the 32-bit coffin?

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of insane monster are you building that requires 3GB of memory in an active instance of devenv.exe? I have solutions with 100+ projects in them and they almost take 1 GB of memory when they're fully loaded. And VS has had the option to selectively unload projects for a long time now.

I don't agree completely with the VS team on their attitude that 32-bit is forever, but you really shouldn't be coming anywhere close to the limits right now or for the near-to-mid future. Maybe in a decade, but probably not.

Or maybe your code is horribly bloated. If so, you should work on that before bitching that VS doesn't support 64-bit memory addressing.

Re:Final nail in the 32-bit coffin?

[OhPlz]

You guys are all over the Connect requests for this, and I want to strangle each and every one of you.

Yes, the code itself doesn't take up much memory. If that's all we were doing, we would never hit the 3GB ceiling. VS isn't just a text editor. When you start using designers (both MS's and third party), analyzers, code mapping, workflow, etc you'll find that you quickly run out of space. Products like DevExpress really chew through memory. It is very easy to hit the limit, and there are many, many developers complaining to MS about it.

This is an outrage

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, if I had'a bought a Surface RT before MS pulled it from their stores, and now I wanted to upgrade it to Windows 10 after it comes out in a few months, then I wouldn't'a been able to?

WTF!

Translation:

[gstoddart]

Given that Windows RT and RT 8.1 were designed for power economizing devices sporting 32-bit ARM architecture, and never had the same functionality -- to many users' frustration -- as full-blown Windows 8 and 8.1, it comes as little surprise that the RT versions of the operating system should be left out of the latest update loop

In the Microsoft view of the world, all devices will become power hogs which are comparable to a desktop, because they've completely missed the fucking point.

I think this is why MS's "one platform for everything" notion is complete crap ... a mobile device should have less resources and hardware than a full on desktop.

But to Microsoft, they can only envision a desktop PC ... which really makes all those "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" commercials more hilarious, because it really seems like Microsoft just doesn't get it. They have yet to see past Exchange and Office and understand what most people actually do with these things.

Ouch!

[BoRegardless]

What this says is no long term vision/planning/execution at Microsoft.

Re:Ouch!

[c2me2]

Or, you know, they're responding effectively to market realities?

Win RT was a flop. Everyone knows it -- even Microsoft. So they're basically dumping it. That's not a lack of "planning / execution" -- that's paying attention to reality.

I guarantee that if Microsoft continued to support Win RT, you would be saying "Herpity derp, look, Microsoft doesn't see the writing on the wall!! herp herp".

Re:Ouch!

[gstoddart]

Well, what you call "paying attention to reality" is a side effect of terrible vision/planning. It's not an accomplishment to stop selling a product which completely missed the mark in the first place.

Microsoft thinks they can tell the market what it is they want, and the keep getting it wrong.

Hell, they release copycat products, and they still keep getting it wrong -- because thy insist on putting their own stamp on things, and are stil stuck in the "Yarg, computers are for Exchange and Office".

I'm pretty sure RT was more or less DOA. Along with their phone.

And they keep doubling down on the idea that all of these tablets will be just another x86 machine so they don't have to build anything new.

I think Microsoft has been suffering from a stunning lack of vision for years -- at least, as far as that 'vision' connects with reality. It's hard to think a company with so much resources can be so inept at understanding the markets they're trying to get into.

Re:Ouch!

[ConceptJunkie]

You're right, except for the fact that no one (outside of Microsoft anyway) ever expected RT to succeed in the first place. The wisdom of the masses can often be wrong, but this one was a gimmee. It's the same thing with Metro on the desktop. No one liked it. It was almost universally panned from the first moment people got a chance to see what it was, but MS doubled down on the bad idea. Now they are backpedalling on it in Windows 9^h 10 (but of course, not eliminating the need for it on the desktop which would be the proper solution).

Re:Ouch!

[spire3661]

We are still in the post-Ballmer transition. Its going to take some time for Nadella and Spencer to turn the ship. And make no mistake these recent announcements show they are at the wheel and turning it as fast as it will allow.

Re:Ouch!

[Anonymous Coward]

Few inside MS even expected it (surface rt, not winrt itself) to succeed. This is MS just trying to continue to unload some of the Sinofsky and Ballmer era trash.

Re:Ouch!

[roc97007]

I think you're right, they're at maximum heel. I wonder at what point the sails touch the water. Or has this already happened?

In other words...

[erp_consultant]

He's dead Jim...

Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not Windows 8 RT it is Windows RT. ReTarded if you will or if you won't.

Re:Translation: no

[jbolden]

No they are continuing to make phones and likely tablets with long battery life. But they aren't going to be on as long an upgrade cycle as computers.

Another Ballmer anchor cut loose.

[jacks smirking reven]

While I would be pissed if I owned an RT device, the whole thing had the classic Ballmer "me too!" strategy all over it.

x86 can't support a tablet for more than 4 hours? Better use ARM! Everyone else is! Screw compatibility!

Whats that Intel? You've new chips coming in 8 months that will give Windows tablets 9 hour run-times with no real work on our part? You left a voicemail? Our WinPhone 7 never upgraded to voicemail and we didn't want to ditch it for WinPhone 8. Oops.

You have been Zuned

[Bearhouse]

Should have been fairly obvious, I would have thought, that the bastard child would be soon abandoned. The coffin lid was pretty-well nailed down from the start due to lack of application support, so it was more like WindowsCE (aka "wince").

Mind you, Google is hardly better - plenty of Android phones & tablets out there with no upgrade path, (yes, often because of the constructors or carriers crapware, I know). Also, don't bother trying to get iOS to run on an iPhone 4s or iPad 2 (I did - devices were virtually unusable).

Re:You have been Zuned

[ConceptJunkie]

But in the case of Android, I don't believe that is primarily Google's fault, short of requiring OEMs to provide an upgrade path, and I think the logistics of that would be difficult... how many upgrades? how long to support? Yes, some OEMs are idiots, but that's nothing new.

Windows RT was solely Microsoft's bad idea.

Re:You have been Zuned

[jmac_the_man]

What the hell does "Zuned" mean?

The last Zune devices were released to the market in 2009. The last version of the Zune software was released in 2012. (Notably, the music store is still operational, although it is rebranded in most places outside of the Zune software.

There was never third party software support for Zune devices, so it's not like that was "pulled."

The Zunes were always a technically superior option to the iPods of their day. The thing that killed the Zune was the fact that people wanted a music player integrated into their phone, and the Zune wasn't a phone. The Zune HD, which didn't really have apps, was released to compete with the iPod Classic, which also didn't have apps and was also killed by the rise of Android and the iPhone.

Re:You have been Zuned

[dbIII]

The Zunes were always a technically superior option to the iPods of their day

Unless the day is at the end of a leap year:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/the-day-microsoft-zunes-stood-still/?_r=0

That's the sort of software mistake that you get a failing grade for in high school.

i doubt MS is abandoning the surface

[nimbius]

Calls from slashdotters that redmond is abandoning surface might hold water. Zune was discontinued after 5 years of dismal sales, and with redmonds new "turning the corner" mentality its possible this is going to be accellerated. This is in fact the tablet that cost Microsoft 900 million in earnings in 3 years; its nothing trivial. It could be the new leadership just isnt interested in blowing a full 5-7 years of xbox revenue on propping up and enhancing something that users just dont care for much. Or perhaps microsoft is just spread too thin. between a failing line of operating systems, a phone no one seems to want, a cloud offering thats nothing short of inferior and overpriced, and a business world that refuses to upgrade from windows 7 Id say its a pretty safe bet the purse strings are tight. Combine this with Gaben's steam machines, OS, and broad support for an approachable commodity linux and its hard to really see where microsoft makes money until you look at where they really shine: the office. Their chat, email, and office applications are absolutely lightyears ahead of any other commercial offering. even Google still uses it despite having developed a large office competitor.

Re:i doubt MS is abandoning the surface

[Anonymous Coward]

"i doubt MS is abandoning the surface"
"Calls from slashdotters that redmond is abandoning surface might hold water."
---
We're talking about bastard abomination of the Surface RT model (the jailed x32arm version) ... not the Surface\Surface pro which run full x64 Windows which of course they are not abandoning and nobody with clue is suggesting otherwise.

Re:i doubt MS is abandoning the surface

[vux984]

Calls from slashdotters that redmond is abandoning surface might hold water.

Honestly, calls from /. about Microsoft are usually full of crap.

That said, Microsoft abandoning Surface RT is probable. The surface pro on the other hand is a solid concept that is getting better with each iteration.

Combine this with Gaben's steam machines, OS, and broad support for an approachable commodity linux

Steam Machines and Steam OS is Valve's hedge against being one-punched out of business by a hypothetical future microsoft where everything goes through the microsoft app store. They see ios... they saw Windows RT... they saw the OSX app store and an OSX that blocks app installs by default from 'elsewhere', they saw the microsoft app store launch with windows 8. And they realized if they didn't have -something- they could be squeezed out of existence a couple iterations down the road.

I think the overall flop of windows 8 and the app store have really taken the pressure off valve to actually have a steam machine. Although they say they are still working on them; as long as Microsoft remains an 'open platform' that users can develop for, and install software from anywhere easily; I don't see the steamos/steambox being a big deal.

and its hard to really see where microsoft makes money

Not really.

Office (of course)
Servers (incl. CALs, Remote Desktop CALs or whatever they are called this week)
Enterprise desktop OSes (so win 8 isn't being widely deployed; enterprises are still paying for software assurance etc to keep installing windows 7 and MS is making great money at it.)

Bing profitability is apparently close, if not already there.
There's definitely money in skype as well; although it surely hasn't paid for itself yet.
And Xbox is has been profitable as well, for several years by all accounts.

Azure? I don't know.
OneDrive? I don't know.

This is one of the reasons....

[HerculesMO]

They axed Steve Sinofsky.

I have heard rumors from folks that work at MS that he was basically blinded by his vision, and didn't want to listen to anybody. The result as we all know, is Windows 8.

Windows 10 looks to be shaping up quite well, and that they are dumping RT isn't a big surprise; it's kind of relevant given that Intel/MS have huge synergies as well as the fact that Intel is making a great dent in the mobile space versus the ARM designs.

I have an x86 Atom Tablet that gets me plenty of battery life and works exceptionally well with Windows 8. I'll be glad to upgrade to Windows 10.

Re:This is one of the reasons....

[ErichTheRed]

I have heard rumors from folks that work at MS that he was basically blinded by his vision, and didn't want to listen to anybody. The result as we all know, is Windows 8.

I heard the same rumors. What's interesting is that some people (Steve Jobs, etc.) can get away with that, and others (Ballmer/Sinofsky) can't. Jobs had to literally die before Apple made a large-screen iPhone, and I don't think we'll ever see new physical buttons on an Apple product again thanks to his minimalist design manifesto.

If they actually do teach MBAs something useful, the Windows 8 case would be a perfect example. I see mini examples of this in the large companies I've worked in as well -- one person gets a hold of the decision makers, doesn't let go, and blows things up because they stop listening to criticism.

Re:This is one of the reasons....

[HerculesMO]

I think Sinofsky envisioned himself AS a "Steve Jobs" type, and that's what he wanted as his legacy. He was stubborn in his principles because he did the same thing that Jobs did -- I am right, and customers are stupid.

In Jobs view it works out well, because his philosophy was one that won over customers. Sinofsky had no prior wins in the consumer or enterprise space, he was a cog in the machine helping push big products along. When he had the spotlight, he felt it was his duty to deliver his vision, rather than what Microsoft was known for -- focus grouping and telemetry reading the environment, which to their benefit, works very well in the enterprise space.

Re:This is one of the reasons....

[Anonymous Coward]

They replaced Sinofsky with Julie Larson-Green, aka "Mother of the Ribbon UI and Metro".

If they can't keep these UX diddlers on a short leash they will continue to fail.

Re:This is one of the reasons....

[spire3661]

Jobs had a sense of taste that no one at MS has. He kept a room in his house with just a nice chair and a Tiffany lamp with the idea that what you leave out is just as important as what you put in. Thats why he could 'get away with it', he actually had a sense of design.

Re:This is one of the reasons....

[painandgreed]

Jobs had to literally die before Apple made a large-screen iPhone, and I don't think we'll ever see new physical buttons on an Apple product again thanks to his minimalist design manifesto.

Thank god.

Re:This is one of the reasons....

[Anonymous Coward]

Protip: an iPad is not a phone. QED.

Re:This is one of the reasons....

[shutdown -p now]

Have you seen Win10?

The leash has been shortened very significantly compared to Win8 times.

Another Zune moment for Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the RT Surface was another Zune moment for Microsoft. Sure, Microsoft make a product like the Surface RT brag about how great it is. Then dump any real support for it. I guess this will eventually be the case for all Windows 8 products. Its pretty obvious Microsoft is trying hard to quickly distance itself from the failures of the recent past. Namely Windows 8 and the Surface RT or ARM based tablet. Of course most Windows users knew this already as Windows RT came out that it was a poor excuse for a Windows platform. I took a chance on A Surface RT for my Wife and its was not something she has ever felt comfortable using. Had to be one of the worst purchases of technology I have made. Except maybe for a Samsung Chromebook with a similar dreadfully slow ARM CPU.
I have no doubt Microsoft will try very hard to erase Windows 8 from history, and doing one year free upgrades to Windows 10 is probably a big step in that direction.

Bye Windows RT

[ErichTheRed]

I guess that's the end of RT and ARM-powered Windows devices.

In my opinion this is a good thing. Despite all the bashing, Microsoft has done a decent job with server operating systems lately, and Windows 7 was pretty good. It's interesting that they have enough money, power and leverage to recover from a move that would probably have sunk a smaller company -- it was also able to absorb 3 iterations of Surface Pro before they got it right, and the killing of Surface RT. Windows 8 was basically a panic reaction to the iPad/mobile/social/Bubble 2.0. I'm sure Windows 10 isn't going to give that all up, but it'll be cool to see them not totally write off desktop/laptop computing yet. Let's hope they don't mess up Windows 10 and Office 2016 too badly before launch. One thing about killing RT is that they're basically saying they can't make money off the Windows Store apps the same way Apple does. This could be a good thing -- let them focus on being a good OS developer instead of trying to be another Apple.

Re:Bye Windows RT

[roc97007]

> Despite all the bashing, Microsoft has done a decent job with server operating systems lately

Well, at least up until October 26, 2012. (Wow, was it really that long ago?)

I'm shocked.

[roc97007]

Shocked, I tell you. That Microsoft would release a non-real-windows-compatible, promote it, and then leave users out in the cold. This has never ever happened before Windows CE. Sorry, I mean, Windows Alpha. Sorry sorry sorry, I mean Windows RT.

Re:I'm shocked.

[ruir]

Brilliant sir.

Re:I'm shocked.

[Anonymous Coward]

you're an idiot... CE still lives in many forms. By leave out in the cold, you mean stopped supporting something after 10 years... get your head into reality, Microsoft supports products just as long or longer than most companies.

Same old Microsoft again. Hardly surprising.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Remember that time when transitioning from Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8? Microsoft was coy about whether WP7 devices would get upgraded to WP8. Coy because the answer was 'no' and yet Microsoft didn't want to scupper the sales of WP7 devices. So it conjured up some marketing claptrap about WP7 devices also 'receiving the experience of WP8'... which eventually turned out to be WP 7.8.

Moral of the story: stop giving your money to such a scummy company unless absolutely necessary e.g. Windows OS or Office license for enterprise use. It is already 2015, Microsoft will keep burning more money (including spending a fortune to buy Minecraft) and there'll be hardly a dent on the mobile duopoly of Apple and Android.

Military maxim comes to mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Never reinforce failure.

"A normal version of Windows"

[gatkinso]

Not very PC.. or maybe it is 100% PC.

Windows + ARM = sunk cash

[unixisc]

That makes sense. RT - Windows on ARM - made even less sense than other NT on RISC platforms in the past. At that time, there was at least a rationale of running NT on more powerful CPUs than Pentiums, or getting Silicon Graphics software on the platform via that route.

But Windows on ARM never made sense. As it is, for the tablet market, both iOS and Android are well entrenched, and for anyone to even consider Windows there, it would have to offer a strong reason to do it. That strong reason would be the ability to run Wintel apps, which one can do on any of the Surface Pro lines. But this line hardly offers that advantage. Good of Microsoft to have finally recognized this reality.

Now, if anybody could install Cyanogenmod/Replicant on these Surface 2s, they'd be in business.

multi-arch Windows

[unixisc]

NT multi-architecture might be a good thing, but the time for that had come & gone once the Alpha went under. They could still resurrect it for the MIPS or the Power architecture (the same one that they made the Xbox 360s) and go there. But the opportunity to go multi-architecture for Microsoft existed in the 90s, and they blew it. Had they made a separate win64 based OS (like we have today) then for just the Alpha & the MIPS, they'd have had time to test & refine it, and had alternatives to 64-bit Wintel when it surfaced. But they never made any serious attempts to support these platforms.

I think now, the wars are b/w platforms, rather than just OSs or just CPUs. The only thing you'll get iOS on will be the A series of processors from Apple. Android comes on a variety of platforms, but Windows Phone 8.x seems to come on just the Cortex.

If Microsoft would unlock the boot loader now...

[ron_ivi]

If Microsoft would unlock the boot loader now, heck, even I (who dislike most microsoft products except their keyboards and mice) would probably be happy to buy a Surface RT.

Seriously - I like the form-factor of the device - and the price. The only thing that stopped me from buying one when they came out was the OS.

Request for Microsoft --- now that you're abandoning it --- please unlock the boot loader.

Re:If Microsoft would unlock the boot loader now..

[CastrTroy]

The actual OS I really like. It has a lot of features that are missing from iOS and Android. One big plus is the support for Network drives. If an app can read a file, it can read it from anywhere, including network drives and OneDrive. There's no special coding required on the application developers part. And apps are still restricted well enough that they can't just read/write willy-nilly to the file system.

What I really don't like is just the fact that so few developers have latched on to their App store ecosystem. And for me that only means less games, as I've been able to find apps to do just about everything else I would want to do on a tablet. If they aren't going to support it anymore, they should at least provide a supported way for running whatever apps you want to on it. Let people program their own applications at least. It wouldn't require unlocking the boot loader, but would still open up the possibility of a lot of independent app development.

For the "netbook" crowd

[tepples]

Who cares about architecture when the OS platform and the development tooling around them are becoming more relevant?

Because the OS platform is still relevant. Some people still want to run lightweight desktop applications on a 10" laptop, even if they have to buy a tablet with a keyboard. "Mobile" operating systems don't run desktop applications. Or should people buy an Android tablet, install an X server, and recompile their applications for Linux/ARM?

Re:If Microsoft would unlock the boot loader now..

[tepples]

If they aren't going to support it anymore, they should at least provide a supported way for running whatever apps you want to on it. Let people program their own applications at least.

In theory, you can get a developer license without charge to privately deploy self-made apps onto an Internet-connected Windows RT device. Like the Steam receipt cache, a Windows developer license expires after a month but can be renewed without charge indefinitely.

The 4S runs iOS just fine

[Radical Moderate]

Mine's running the latest version, 8.1.2, and it works great. Sounds like you just had a borked phone, it happens.

I agree re RT, it was obvious MS was abandoning it, anyone who expected to upgrade one to Win 10 was pretty clueless.

The real reason for RT

[Anonymous Coward]

While Microsoft may have liked to make some money from RT instead of writing off nearly a billion dollars (with more to come), the real reson was to stop OEMs making ARM tablets with a non-Microsoft OS. They brought back XP to kill off Linux on netbooks by treatening to remove discounts on _all_ MS products if the OEM disloyally loaded a different OS on machines that could run Windows.

With ARM tablets MS could not leverage this 'loyalty' while there was no Windows for ARM. With RT they could kill the Dell Android tablets and HP's WebOS. And it worked.

Will they unlock?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you will not be able to upgrade the OS and MS eventually stops providing updates to that OS will they at least release the keys to install something else?

(I doubt it too but it would be the right thing to do)

Re:Will they unlock?

[roc97007]

> So if you will not be able to upgrade the OS and MS eventually stops providing updates to that OS will they at least release the keys to install something else?

No of course not. And the reason is, if you continue using your Surface RT, regardless of what OS you're running, you aren't buying some other Microsoft product. I think the expected behavior is to throw your RT away and buy a "real" Surface. So hop to it.

WindowsRT = Marketing Failure

[Anonymous Coward]

and the failure is with the WINDOWS Brand itself. If I were buying a WinRT device and didn't know the difference, I'd fully expect the damn thing to run any windows software my laptop/desktop already does.

Simply put, there was not enough differentiation between WindowsRT and Windows 8/8.1 because folks looking at it see Windows and drop/chop the RT off as it's just like Windows 8.1

If they'd managed to diferentiate things as well as Apple did with IOS and OSX (totally different even to the clueless) they'd have been able to pull a split of the market just like Apple did with IOS and the Ipad and that's the failure of the marketing droids. They couldn't see the forest because of all the trees.

Phone as trackpad

[tepples]

Except that mobile devices like phones and tablets are fundamentally different than PCs.

In what way? Pair a Bluetooth keyboard and plug in an HDMI monitor, and the phone's touch screen ought to become the trackpad of a computer with a desktop-style window management policy.

CNN Kick Stands

[jfdavis668]

CNN can go back to using them as kickstands to hold up their ipads. As seen on CNN...

Re:If Microsoft would unlock the boot loader now..

[CastrTroy]

I've use that to develop my own software. It's really quite great. If they just opened up the development a bit more so that things didn't expire, or things didn't have to be signed at all, then it would be as good as Android as far as side-loading apps goes. I also think it would be great if they opened up the desktop API. there was a jailbreak for Windows 8 (doesn't work on 8.1) which allowed desktop apps to be run if recompiled. I think they got DOSBOX, SharpDevelop, and a few other things working on it. Just unlocking the thing would probably make a lot of people happy for not supporting Windows 10. Let's hope somebody at MS is reading this.

Re:If Microsoft would unlock the boot loader now..

[vandamme]

If they had a fire sale, and you could load a decent Linux.....tempting.

Avoiding responsibility?

[dbIII]

Uhhhh...you DO know MSFT didn't actually WRITE that software, right?

Clearly they didn't test it enough either.

You stick your name on something and your reputation suffers if it spectacularly fucks up in a very stupid way.

Re:Avoiding responsibility?

[hairyfeet]

Blame Ballmer and his "Herpa de derp, gotta ape everything Apple does herpa derpa" bullshit. Its part of a pattern, along with MSFT Kin, rushing the 360 to market, Surface RT being released with no software and a half assed market....its really not surprising, history will judge Ballmer as the MSFT version of the Pepsi guy at Apple.