Top Microsoft Writer: Microsoft's Windows RT Experiment Is A Failure

Ars Technica

Microsoft's Windows RT seems to be failing, Peter Bright, a Microsoft expert over at ArsTechnica's reports.

Microsoft released both Windows 8 and Windows RT in October 2012. RT runs on ARM and is more lightweight and mobile-oriented, but it can't run third-party desktop apps. And its ARM processor makes it incompatible with a lot of Windows applications, like Outlook, for example.

As of right now, RT seems to be a flop, Bright writes. He points to how Samsung decided not to move forward with its Windows RT device, the Ativ Tab, due to lack of interest from U.S. retailers. And Samsung recently halted the sales of the tablet in Germany because of low demand.

Here's what's wrong with Windows RT, according to Bright:

• All applications must come through the Windows Store, and be built with the Windows RT API.
• Its applications, like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, lack macro support and add-in support.
• There's no domain joining.
• The version of Office it ships with isn't licensed for business use.
• There's no Outlook, though Microsoft is reportedly working on it.

"As currently conceived, Windows RT is a lemon, and users are avoiding it in droves," Bright writes. "But I'm not sure it has to be that way. With a few small changes, Windows RT could make sense, just perhaps not the way Microsoft intended."

Bright argues that Microsoft should unlock domain joining, macroing, and include a license for Outlook.

"With this, Windows RT would become a viable working platform that was tightly locked down, and that could run on relatively cheap, robust, no-moving-part devices," Bright writes. "This would increase Windows RT's value on tablets and similar machines to an extent, but I think Microsoft could then go a stage further: embrace Windows RT in non-tablet usage scenarios."