Microsoft moves to unify Windows

Microsoft's head of products, Julie LarsonGreen, has foretold of the future where there are not three distinct versions of Windows. "We possess the Windows Phone OS. We've got Windows RT and we've got complete Windows," LarsonGreen said in the UBS Global Technology Conference. "We're not likely to get three," she inexplicably added. Most journalists are getting this to imply that Windows RT is right at the end of its own short and pitiful existence. I believe this is larger than that, though: This is evidence that all three of Microsoft's os's will be killed off, replaced with a brand new, consolidated and incorporate OS that spans phones, tablets, notebooks, and desktops.

This prophetic little tid-bit from LarsonGreen is the next time that Microsoft has telegraphed its aim to combine its various systems. We theorized that having an individual application function across form factors was merely the very first stage, and that Microsoft's actual aim is an individual OS that runs across every system. 

It may be as easy as Windows RT being retired. I believe, however, that Microsoft is really well aware the time for little modifications has ended -- eliminating Windows RT from the equation is fine, but it doesn't change the reality that Microsoft is still in distant third-place within the smart phone and tablet markets. Microsoft must create a really, really huge change when it desires to stay competitive. Killing off Windows RT, that has basically been a massively lossmaking nonentity since its coming, could be like killing Zune or Family -- retiring a crappy merchandise doesn't magically make Microsoft competitive.

That isn't to mention that it won't be a phased consolidation, actually. Microsoft could retire Windows RT tomorrow with no second thought. Then, at some point later on, Microsoft could launch one OS that works across tablets, phones, desktops, notebooks, as well as the multitude of other COMPUTER form factors. With an individual platform for developers to goal, plus Microsoft's normally exceptional developer tools, Microsoft may eventually manage to rustle up the applications it requires for its smart phones and tablets to get an opportunity against Apple and Google.

One thing's for particular, though: If LarsonGreen and Myerson are still just talking in obscure and mysterious conditions, then we're still months or years from Microsoft enacting a significant change -- and time will be the only thing that Microsoft actually doesn't have.