Microsoft caused a stir earlier this week when an executive appeared to hint that it might kill off Windows RT, the version of its Windows 8 platform that runs on ARM-based devices. But what would this mean for Microsoft's mobile strategy and its remaining Windows platforms if this happened?
Julie Larson-Green, executive vice president of Microsoft's Devices and Studios group, made the comments while speaking at a conference earlier this week.
"We have the Windows Phone operating system
[OS]. We have Windows RT and we have full Windows. We're not going to
have three," she is reported to have told the audience at the UBS Global
Technology Conference.
This has been widely interpreted by many as
meaning that the company is planning to discontinue Windows RT, which
has failed to achieve the level of sales that were expected of it.
Rather than continuing to pour resources into developing and maintaining
RT, many observers believe that Microsoft should just pull the platform
and cut its losses.
However, this would leave Microsoft back where
it started years ago: with Windows on x86 PCs, Windows Phone on
smartphones, and nothing in the middle to address the consumer tablet
market that Apple's iPad devices had effectively created.
Let's not forget that all of the changes that
have come in Windows 8 were introduced in response to the threat
Microsoft saw to Windows PCs from the iPad and other tablets, a threat
that has turned into reality in the consumer space as sales of PCs have
continued to decline.
Part of Microsoft's response was to build an ARM
version of the platform, in order to deliver the combination of a light
weight and a long battery life that devices such as the iPad enjoy, and
which x86 based systems still cannot match.
But buyers have overwhelmingly opted to purchase
Windows tablets with the full-blown Windows 8 version, which is capable
of running existing applications designed for earlier versions of
Windows.
According to Larson-Green, this is partly
Microsoft's fault due to a lack of clear differentiation between the
capabilities and target markets of the Windows 8 and Windows RT.
"I think we didn't explain that super well," she
said. "I think we didn't differentiate the devices well enough. They
looked similar. Using them is similar. It just didn't do everything that
you expected Windows to do," she said.
Ovum's principal analyst for devices and
platforms Tony Cripps agreed, and said that it would likely make more
sense for Microsoft to instead scale up its Windows Phone 8 software
into a tablet platform to replace Windows RT.
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