Microsoft exec: 'We are not going to have three' Windows platforms

November 25, 2013

Steve Ballmer's audacious vision of "One Microsoft, all the time," delivering a single, seamless user experience across a wide range of devices, from PCs to tablets to video-game consoles, will not be achieved without digital bloodshed. Windows will die, a Microsoft exec suggested last week.. Or at least, some form of Windows will die. Speaking at the UBS Global Technology Summit last week, Microsoft device and services chief Julie Larson-Green strongly hinted that further unification is a-coming. "We have the Windows Phone OS," she said, as first reported by Citeworld and since confirmed by a Microsoft transcript. "We have Windows RT and we have full Windows. We are not going to have three." While the straightforwardness of Larson-Green's words is somewhat shocking, the meaning at their core is not. Microsoft has been moving toward a unified user experience for a long, long time now, as evidenced by the cross-platform nature of Windows 8 itself, along with the proliferation of Live Tiles everywhere. The sweeping company reorg that accompanied Ballmer's "One Microsoft" proclamation placed a single person—Terry Myerson—in charge of Windows for all platforms, and Myerson hasn't been shy about his plans for the overarching Microsoft universe. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2066028/microsoft-exec-we-are-not-going-to-have-three-windows-platforms.html#tk.rss_all