Windows and the utopia of software convergence

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in microsoft on (#2S7N)
story imageWindows Phone; Windows 7, 8, 9; Windows RT; Windows CE; and not to mention all the different variations of Windows boxed OSes (Pro, Basic, Home, and so on): there have been a lot of different products that bear the name Windows, and someone has probably decided it's time to simplify.
The idea would be that, in the mind of the consumer, Windows is just Windows, and that all of these different names and flavors are just confusing ("Why is it called Windows Phone if it can't run my Windows programs?"). Getting rid of all that complexity and returning to the old way - where Windows is synonymous with personal computing - would certainly be a coup for Microsoft. But just as it shot itself in the foot with Windows RT, consolidating on just "Windows" could be fiscal suicide if Microsoft's various operating systems don't indeed come together as one harmonious platform.
The folks at ExtremeTech have noticed a shift in nomenclature and marketing focus these days, as several products have simply discussed Windows, with no emphasis on anything other than that single word. The challenge here is that what marketing wants can't be delivered by the technical teams behind all those different versions of Windows operating systems, as they are not just different codebases, but extremely different code bases.

It's Too Early to Tell (Score: 3, Interesting)

by venkman@pipedot.org on 2014-09-10 02:16 (#2S7S)

Who knows what Microsoft is cooking up? I'm sure the plan is nebulous in all but a few of the Windows team leaders. One thing that has hurt Windows is that the world of computing has been changing faster than they can keep up. The original Windows fulfilled a serious need...providing a simple GUI was absolutely necessary in order to get a computer on everyone's desk in the office. Now, what is the need to be met? I believe, again, the interface is where the opportunity lies. Someone saw this as well, and that person or persons tried to think outside of the box when Metro was designed, but many of a computer's uses do not fit into the tile paradigm.
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