The Quest For The Why Of Windows RT

In the beginning, Microsoft released the Surface RT. This made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Hitchhikers references aside, The Surface RT along with Windows 8 seem to be the biggest Microsoft failures in recent memory.

Windows 8 RT and the Surface RT were Microsoft's attempt at making a lightweight, low power, ARM processor based, media consumption tablet. If their Surface Pro models were intended to take on the likes of the MacBook Air and other ultraportables, the RT equivalent was almost certainly designed to take on the iPad and Android tablets. These were marketed as a "Get stuff done" tablet as an afterthought, but that idea was mainly used alongside the Pro models.

History shows that RT tablets sold poorly and nobody quite understood what the angle was with Microsoft and the OS spinoff. Why not just use atom processors and make low powered x86 netbook competitors? Why ARM, which breaks compatability with all existing Windows applications outside of the ones in the Windows Marketplace? Why Why Why?

To date, there's no clear cut explanation. RT just sounds like a bad move all together. Is it though? Could there be some nefarious ulterior motive? I think yes, and my jumping point for this topic is a strange one.

Who remembers the Ubuntu Edge concept? This was a crowd funding attempt by the open source Linux distribution to create a very unique phone. The device was said to come packing incredibly high specifications rivaling most laptop computers. The most intriguing part of the device was what it could do when it was tired of being a phone. This device could dock to a screen, mouse, and keyboard via USB and become a full fledged desktop computer. The phone would automatically boot in to a desktop mode which was literally a desktop operating system. Everything you could run on any other distribution of Ubuntu linux, you could run on this phone while docked. Alas, the crowdfund failed but it did spark some interest in the community for a device with those capabilities.

Fast forward back to present day. Microsoft just purchased Nokia and now has the ability to make their own Surface phone. As a rule of thumb, most phones (see: nearly all) are based on ARM processors, not x86.

Microsoft is keeping Windows RT around despite almost unanimous hatred from partners and consumers alike. I don't agree with many decisions made by Microsoft in recent years, but there has to be a method to the madness here. I've got my tinfoil hat on proudly, and I'm willing to bet that Microsoft is going to bring the Ubuntu Edge legacy to reality.

I figure they're going to load Windows 8 RT on to a separate memory chip inside the device. When the device is detected as being docked, the phone will switch over to "desktop mode" and load RT, which will offer users a full PC experience they are already extremely familiar with. Once Windows 8 / 8.1 start gaining more market share, more of the apps people use on a daily basis will become available through the Windows Market place (and thus, available on ARM and x86 devices alike). You will be able to take your entire computer with you wherever you go without any problems.

At the 2013 Microsoft Company Meeting, it was revealed that there are already plans to merge the Windows Phone and Windows 8 / RT App repositories in to one centralized "store". All of this seems to strongly point at my conclusion being correct.

Again, I'm not an industry insider. I have no idea if this is legit or not. As of right now, this is all just a nerd speculating on the internet. I must say this is an insanely cool idea. If something as "obscure" as linux could gather mainstream attention from the idea, I can only imagine what Microsoft could accomplish if they follow through with this.

Microsoft and Surface Tension

Before I begin, I'll admit something that I consider a deep dark secret.

I LIKE the Surface. I don't love it. I LIKE IT! That alone is an unpopular opinion.

I think the Microsoft's homemade tablet has a lot of potential to smash in to the computing market like a wrecking ball (insert miley cyrus track here), but some bonehead moves are keeping it from realizing it's full potential.

I honestly think that the potential with the Surface tablets lies with the fact that they are effectively tablets for PEOPLE WHO WANT TO GET THINGS DONE. They are tablets for creators, not just consumers. As such, they are a major wrench in the tablet market engine.

Sure you have the potential to create on other tablets (iPad, GalaxyTab, Nexus, etc) but it's often limited by weak third party applications and complicated connectivity issues. They are marketed as tools to help consume content. Apps, Games, Music and Videos are the main purpose. This is no secret.

Microsoft came in with a different tune. They knew that content consumption was a cornered market and breaking in was going to be a challenge. Instead they went a different route. Yeah, you can consume on these surface devices too....but you can ALSO CREATE. Running a full desktop OS allows for a lot of flexibility with application and periphreal support. Photoshop, Pro-Tools, Vegas, etc. All of that would run on this small tablet with a keyboard you can throw in your bag. It was a thin and light laptop with a touch screen. The idea seems great.  I mean the main accessory for this thing is a keyboard. How much more work oriented could you get?

Microsoft then made the huge mistake of ignoring this fact almost immediately and targeting content consumers as their ideal audience. All of the advertising seemed centered around "COOL" dancing and interaction rather than the potential of the device. With the prices the way they sat, nobody was going to buy a surface OR a surface pro when they could get a cool iPad instead.

Another problem came with the RT version of the tablet. RT was an ARM based version of the Surface. It could only use apps from the windows store, and it had a Desktop mode which was effectively worthless because you couldn't run the same windows apps you could on your computer. This was their targeted consumption device. It ran awfully, lacked an ecosystem, and was no competition for iPads or Android equivalents.

Worse yet, Microsoft managed to cannibalize their own sales. Why would anybody buy a Surface RT when they could get a Pro for small premium. The Pro does EVERYTHING, and it does it well. The Surface RT is a monstrosity that should not have ever existed. It's only advantage over the more powerful brother was that it was a bit thinner and lacked a "noisy" fan. As expected, the tablet sold terribly and Microsoft lost millions on the launch. I thought they had learned their lesson then and there.

You can imagine my horror when I heard that the Surface 2 was coming in an RT flavor as well. Microsoft does not even come close to having the required ecosystem to make this work. Sure it's a low priced surface tablet, but it lacks the functionality that makes the surface great. For the same price, I can get a Nexus 10 and enjoy my content with a couple hundred bucks lining my pocket. I could also spend a bit more and get a larger library of content with an iPad.

The Surface Pro, on the other hand remains a great tablet PC for people who want to make things happen. The new ads focus on this, and it seems Microsoft is getting the message now. I have some ideas about their long term plans for the RT platform but regardless, the Surface RT is a mistake. It's their biggest mistake and it is tainting the amazing potential that lies in the Surface brand. I hope Microsoft knows what they're doing and bails out before it's too late. I would love to see the Surface succeed and I'm eagerly awaiting a Nokia made Microsoft branded Surface Phone. Yes Please.

What lies beneath the Surface?

With the release of Windows 8, most of the tech world has come to the conclusion that touch interfaces and tablets are here to stay.

The next stage of Microsoft's Windows evolution was the line of Surface branded tablet PCs. This was their hero device for their new OS and it was released with this ad:

Well, that sucked.

Why? Well it didn't actually TELL me anything about the device they were selling. Why should I care about this thing? Will it teach me to dance and twerk like the hip young kids are doing? Probably not.

No, this is a computer and computers are devices to help make your life easier. How will this new device differ from my current aging Dell laptop? Furthermore, how does this differ from the huge variety of released Windows 8 touch laptops? The ad fails to tell me. It grabbed my attention but at the end of the day I'm still clueless as to what they're selling. Actually, that's wrong. I'm a nerd and keep up with this. When my grandmother saw this, she simply commented on the funny dancing and went back to watching Dancing with the Stars or something. 

THAT particular advertisement was followed up with this one: 

This one is for their "Pro" line of Surface devices. This one is a bit more focused on the capabilities of the device showing it being used to do something with spreadsheets and charts and I'm fairly sure I saw a flash of the mail app in there.

Again, same overall problem. Too much dancing. Not enough persuasion. How does this dancemachine outrank dell's latest plastic computer? I don't know!

I understand Microsoft is trying to appeal to a more youthful audience with these things. I guess you can call them the iPad generation. However, this is not the way to do it. Apple commercials always make it a point to show you what you can DO with the devices. They show how these devices can take the mundane things you do daily and make them FUN AND INNOVATIVE. 

Microsoft needs to take a hint from that approach. Sure, make it cool and dancetastic, but also show how this thing can be used in day to day activities. So many companies have a difficult time doing this and I've always felt that it results in decreased sales. Finding that fine line between functionality and entertainment is the key to successful marketing. 

Hardware Concept - One Stop Dock

Portable computing has come a long way in recent years. Where 6 years ago, our only option for portable computing was a heavy laptop computer, now we have devices that fit in our pockets that can do everything we need on the road.

However, this abundance of devices poses a possible problem. There's too many of them! I'll give an anecdote to explain further:

When I left for college, my family bought me a laptop computer, coincidentally the one I am still using today. Later during the HP fire sale, I bought a HP TouchPad tablet and flashed Android on it. I also have an Android smartphone.

Back home, I had a mid range desktop PC. While the specs are a bit dated, it still outperforms my laptop when it comes to things like 3D gaming or video editing. However, since my life at school needed portability, all of my programs, settings, and files were set up ideally on my laptop. When I came home, even in the presence of my more powerful gaming computer with the larger screen, I was still on my laptop most of the time. I only reluctantly turned my desktop on when I wanted to play a game. Talk about first world problems.

Now I propose a solution to this. One device with all settings, that can be "upgraded" at will. Basically you have your tablet or laptop computer with it's limited specs. However, since it's portable you have all of your settings on there. Sure, cloud helps to bridge this gap but it's still not really enough.

Now imagine you have the option to dock this in a setup with much higher specifications. When docked, the system would ignore the onboard specs (or combine them a la SLI or something) and gives you the full scale performance you expect from a larger more permanent computer. That would be amazing!

The dock could be configurable like a standard desktop. You would have all the ports and features you dont get from a smaller tablet or laptop. You could even do things like install stand alone drives in the computer that back up the entire OS using the built in hardware, while you use the dock's hardware to do your work / gaming.

Click to embiggen and read my musings.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine that dock now becomes a home mainframe device. You access content on your portable device from the living room TV via wifi or something. Suddenly you only need one device and some (hopefully standardized) accessories.

I know this gets kinda sketchy but, now lets go to the maximum of extravagance and wastefulness that makes America awesome. Imagine you take that main tablet with you and dock it when you get home. But WAIT! you want to watch movies on the couch and browse with it but you want to keep the tablet docked to charge / backup / someone else is using it/ etc.

There's a type of computer called a zero client device. Basically its a barebones computer that relies on a mainframe to run it's OS. Take that, apply it to a tablet (bare bones, low specs, basically running from the dock / main device combo). Now you can browse on the couch and not mess with anything else. The best part - these devices could come extremely cheap because they will be used for light activity and don't need onboard storage.

Anyways, this is what I see as the future of personal computing. It's not really Post-PC, but rather PC+. Because you know what? I LIKE a tactile keyboard and high power, and I won't be giving that up anytime soon.

Hardware Idea - Portable Laptop Printer

When I was in college, I was always paranoid about getting my term papers printed well before the due date. Many professors had a zero tolerance late policy so if your paper wasn't in her hand by 8:00am, you got a failing grade - NO EXCEPTIONS. Because my luck had a tendency to gravitate to the bad end, I always took precautions and made sure my work was printed a full 24 hours before the deadline. I always wished there was an easier way though.

I found the following diagram in a pictures folder on my external hard drive a few days ago. I apparently made this in my sophomore year of college, no doubt during a particularly boring class. I figured it belonged on this blog:

Sorry for the quality of the upload.

It's a little hard to see but the printer is a very flat, approximately laptop dimensioned printer that you could take with you alongside the laptop. I'm not exactly sure if technology has reached the point where this is practical yet, but basically the whole top would be a large black and white ink cartridge. under that would be a small stepper motor type thing for applying the ink. The whole thing would be powered by a rechargable battery which is capable of printing X number of pages between each charge. It would have the typical USB printer connection as well as a mini / micro USB cable port for connectivity. I didn't include it at the time but it might be a better idea at this point and time to include WI-FI printing / Cloud printing.

The right side of the device would have a small LCD display for messages (mainly errors). There would also be a cancel button, a resume button, and a power button.

Printing would occur in a similar fashion to a fax machine. blan paper would go in the front and be spit out the back as the completed document. Simple as that.

This would be a great product for the business person on the go. Sometimes you have last minute documents to print and are nowhere near a public printing location. This printer would be small enough and lightweight enough that you could just throw it in your laptop bag and go about your daily life. It would also be great in an office setting. It's small enough that it could be placed below a monitor on a desk and forgotten about. This is especially great for all in one type computers (iMac, HP TouchSmart, etc).

Office Example

So again, this idea depends entirely on battery technology as well as printer mechanics technology. I think it's a possibility in the near future though. I've seen some portable 3D printers, and this only needs 2 dimensions.

Only time will tell