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Microsoft Unveils Windows 10 S, an Education Edition Limited To Windows Store Apps (venturebeat.com)
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a new edition of its latest operating system: Windows 10 S. Available on first-party and third-party hardware -- Microsoft will be releasing its own Windows 10 S device and will also let manufacturers sell their own -- Windows 10 S is a streamlined edition of Windows 10 aimed at the education market. From a report: "We really are working hard to deliver the best platform for education, for students of all ages and school districts of all devices," said Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president in Microsoft's operating systems group, about the new Windows 10 S release. The main way that Windows 10 S differs from the other editions is that it can only run apps from the Windows Store. That includes Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps and Win32 apps that Microsoft has approved into its app store. The goal is to avoid the problems of traditional Win32 apps that often run in the background and push their own updates. Microsoft wants to stop apps from hooking into the boot and sign-in process to handle all their own updates, which in turn slows down startup time. Windows Store can take care of this today, but Windows 10 S makes it the only way to install and update apps. As a result, Microsoft hopes Windows 10 S will be able to offer faster sign-in times and better battery life. This is still a full version of Windows 10. It's just locked down to only work with apps that Microsoft has approved, similar to how Apple and Google lock down iOS and Android to their respective app stores. The operating system follows the company's Intune for Education announcement back in January. Those systems created by third-party hardware partners like Acer, Asus, HP, Dell and Toshiba, start at $189.
Android is not a walled garden. The fact that the Google Play Store is generally the only app store installed by default doesn't stop users from downloading an APK for an alternative like F-Droid. No rooting or unlocking required. The full version of Windows 10 is similar -- the Windows Store is the easiest way for users to install software with some assurance that it will work well on their device, but if they want to download applications from other sources, nothing is stopping them.
Microsoft Paranoia still reigns, and with some good reason, but I think the walled garden approach here is mainly about Chromebooks. Schools are buying Chromebooks because they are simple to maintain, and MS is producing a locked down windows product to compete. Whether this indicates long term plans of MS to try and implement on all of Windows, feel free to speculate away. I think a hybrid approach is more likely. They want a cut of the walled garden, but they still have to accommodate a large portion of their customers.