Last week Microsoft held a financial analyst meeting with Julie Larson-Green, Kirill Tatarinov, Qi Lu, Satya Nadella and Terry Myerson, and moderated by Tami Reller (docx file). One of the questions asked during this meeting was about the future of Windows RT, which was a good one at that. Manufacturers have seemingly bailed out on the ARM-based platform, and Microsoft's own Surface RT stockpile caused the company to take a $900 million hit in the pocket.
"We have two very important chipset families in everything we're doing in all of our devices, and that's x86 and ARM," answered Microsoft's new head of the operating systems division, Terry Myerson. "The ARM devices in particular in phones have incredible share given their battery life and the connectivity options available with the system-on-a-chip ecosystem. Windows RT was our first ARM tablet. And as phones extend into tablets, expect us to see many more ARM tablets, Windows ARM tablets in the future."
Earlier in the session, Myerson said that Microsoft should have one silicon interface and one set of APIs for all devices. Even more, all apps brought to end users should be available on all of those devices, not just one set on one architecture and one set on another. The company also needs one core cloud service to enable all devices whether they're branded Windows or Xbox. In addition, users should have a familiar, unified experience across all devices, but each device should also have a tailored experience whether it's an 8 inch tablet or a 60 inch HDTV.
"So our team is now organized in this way," Myerson said. "We [have] a core team that will bring those silicon interfaces together, bring those developer platforms together, and approach delivery of apps to the customers in a common way. We have one team delivering the core services that will light up our devices. And then we have satellite teams each focused on each of the device categories, so each of them can be reflective of what the customer expects in that place."
As it stands now, Microsoft has created a unified design style across desktop, mobile and console, but the app ecosystem is divided between x86 and ARM-based architectures. One of the biggest complaints thus far is a lack of a common store shared between tablets and phones. However, the statements made during the session seem to indicate that Microsoft is still pushing for simplicity: one platform and one app market to rule them all.
"We've been together, brought all the OS groups together at the company for about two months now," he said. "And we really haven't been wasting any time in terms of organizing all of our efforts in the operating system area around three key beliefs." Again, those three beliefs are one silicon interface, one core service and a tailored experience for each device.
Does this mean Microsoft plans to merge Windows RT and Windows Phone? That's up in the air, but the wording points to a possibility that Microsoft could also bring Windows Phone to tablets. The outlook, it seems, is that Microsoft is shooting for a Windows 8 platform without labels for all form factors and architectures.
Microsoft plans to hold a Surface event on Monday, reportedly to showcase the new Surface Pro, Surface RT and Surface Mini tablets. Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1 are slated to launch on October 18, 2013.
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