Makes sense, especially if they’re targeting business professionals since I doubt makers of non-entertainment software will embrace the new Metro UI and will continue to make desktop software for a while. From what I’ve read there isn’t an easy way to make desktop software for both RT and 8.

According to the ff article

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-RT-HP-Jelly-Bean-Android-4.1-OEM,16161.html

other manufacturers are considering similar moves to HP on Win RT tablets. Apparently, Microsoft was charging 3x the Win 8 x86 license fee for a Win RT license. Also, MS was privy to the final designs of tablet manufacturers, then used this knowledge to come up with the Surface tablet design. If these are true, then MS is up to its dirty tricks again.

Microsoft had lost a $100 million lawsuit before when, while ostensibly doing due diligence of its proposed acquisition of a software vendor which was selling a Drivespace (disk compression) type product, it supposedly sent an engineer who memorized the trade secrets he saw at the software vendor. Microsoft then came out with Drivespace, which was a virtual clone of the vendor’s product. To avoid paying the $100 million award, Microsoft bought the vendor.

So your point is that just because MS is that just because it’s a bad strategic move to have the Surface Tablet, because it is directly competing with the suppliers they are supposedly relying on, that MS isn’t also charging way more for a license than most companies will find in profit margin, because MS is compelling Office and WinRT to be bundled together?

It’s not just Semi-Accurate saying these things. A lot of the coverage at Computex covered it as well. It was even on The Tech Report.

It may or may not be true. But the industry history doesn’t really look very positive in the startlingly few cases where companies offer to partner with their suppliers to help them make the best product they can, then decide that they all suck, don’t tell them that, and instead secretly make their own design, and then blind-side said suppliers with a release with little to no warning.

History will tell the tale after it’s unfolded, but I believe that’s not considered playing nice, and might generate a LOT of ill will from one’s partners, that might make them reconsider supporting a platform, that was already having a lukewarm reception due to a lot of other unnecessary steps MS did to essentially cripple Windows on Arm making it look from the outside like a very unappealing platform for end users who may not realize what they are buying. This is especially true since the more expensive platform will actually do everything like run legacy apps, thus making it harder for consumers to determine exactly what they are buying without specific industry knowledge such as what the processor in the thing can or can’t do.

First it’s not a automatic bad move for MS to have created the Surface any more than it’s a bad move for Google to have any of their Nexus branded products created!

Second, bad move for who? Setting higher standard for products is usually better for the consumer. Really, when did everyone start caring about manufacturers more than the consumers?

Third, a lot of bloggers and even some so called news sites don’t really know what they’re talking about and are mainly just voicing their opinions like everyone else. While some just do it to get more net traffic through their site with the sensational titles.

It’s like the claim of the 3x cost, which I already pointed out why it was false. So let’s not confuse people discussing rumors and opinions with facts to begin with!

Remember, MS hasn’t released much details on the Surface. So most of what you’ve read are just rumors.

While MS has been complaining about its partners for quite some time and they already knew MS wasn’t happy but the problem was they still pretty much were doing whatever they wanted.

Since the fact are that every company, not just MS, are mainly concerned about their bottom line and few want to take risks anymore.

So only very few companies are really still innovating anymore.

While most just take the same idea, repackage it and sell their own version and then rinse and repeat.

It’s like what happened to netbooks, with every one pretty much the same there wasn’t much at all to distinguish one from another and they cut so many corners that the latest ones are practically designed to be disposable. Along with virtually no advancement in literally years.

This is the pattern that the entire PC market was starting to follow and is why both Intel and MS are trying to re-invigorate the markets with some much needed changes.

So keep in mind MS is trying to change the market and not just introduce a new version of their OS and there is overlap with the interest of the other companies because if MS is successful then that benefits them all with renewed consumer interest in what they’ll be selling.

There’s just no pleasing everyone but there’s little doubt that the change was needed and it’s just a question of whether they are necessarily good changes but like you said it remains to be seen.

Like whether MS choices for designing Windows for ARM were all good choices.

However, MS does have good reasons for the choices they made. Like better security, better stability, better efficiency, and faster performance.

While things like Legacy support were never really realistic considerations for ARM. Since it would have been a nightmare getting everything compatible and would have bloated Windows RT to Vista proportions.

ARM still has many limitations like they’re all still 32bit processors. They’ll eventually get 64bit but it’s coming to the server market first and will be many years more before we see it available to the general consumer. So that leaves out VM as many require 64bit and besides VM isn’t 100% for all programs.

While the performance range of ARM has only recently rivaled the Intel ATOM, which is very low by PC standards and can barely run Windows 7.

So they needed every erg of performance to keep Windows from not seeming sluggish, especially for tablets which such sluggishness are more obvious and it doesn’t take much to change opinions from it’s okay to why am I using this reaction.

Consequently the lack of apps would be a concern for the initial release of Windows RT. So that’s another reason for them to include Office to keep the basic reasons why most people still use desktop OS that are otherwise happy with mobile devices.

Really, you don’t see services like Citrix offering that many things besides remote access to apps like Office after all.

While Office is also one of MS biggest sellers and one of the reasons why MS would be concerned about business users and yet another reasosn why MS would be considering those types of users first.

Mind MS did bother to change the name to RT specifically to reference “WinRT (Runtime)” to set it apart from regular Windows 8. So I don’t think it’ll be that confusing to remember the difference.

All these changes though will make it tough for early adopters and that brings up the possibility that MS may have done better if they took the changes more piece meal instead of all at once but again we’ll have to wait and see.

VERY good posts Gusa.
Always a pleasure to read (and learn from) you.
People tend to make up their minds with little to no evidence or facts, just by reading biased or little informed bloggers/writters.
Not mentioning they have their own bias and their desire to bash MS (it deserves it most of the time, still) is also coming into play.
Like if the alternatives (beside Linux but that’s another story) were proposed by angels (Google and Apple, even Amazon of course)
But he’s right on one thing (at least), people are dumb and they may be disappointed, after purchasing a SurfaceRT, to not being able to run their x86 apps.
ARM, x86, most people don’t know and don’t care.
They buy Windows because they know the environment.
For them, the new Metro UI is just a face-lift, an evolution.
It may be the case on Metro, but not RT.
So, we’ll see but I expect the worse.

But that’s not even the point. The point is, actually:
“What’s the point of purchasing a device running RT, then?” (meaning if it cannot run x86 apps).

So,, it’s gonna be difficult for MS to sell RT.
If people accepted iOS, it’s because they didn’t have much choice in the begining of the tablet market.
Android is now better than iOS but, at the same time, more and more closed (see the Nexus tablet which represent the dream mobile device for Google -as well as Amazon and Apple-, a completely closed environment where the user has no other choice than to be a customer. Completely captive of the ecosystem/OS of the tablet.)

MS and RT just offer more of the same.
Why choose RT over iOS/Android and ‘android-Amazon’??
Office, that’s it?
Sure, some people will like the Surface and its design plus the fact that it’s new/fresh and has a light and thin keyboard.
But the price, the low number of apps, the impossibility of personnalizing the UI and familiarizing yourself with a new OS (even a simple and ergonomic one) won’t help convincing people to make the jump.

Sure, MS NEEDED to take the matter into their own hands. But if they want to succeed they need to take a lot more agressive approach on RT.
Lower prices, support (financially by different ways and even more so on the developping part. Because if, as @noone suggested, devs are helped and convinced of the potential of the platform to decide to dedicate time, money and effort into creating apps for RT, well, it’s gonna be a hollow one.) developpers and communicate by using lots of future/innovation oriented marketing campaign.
If they don’t and think the product will sell itself just by putting some ads here and there, RT is DOA.

The Surface pro, on the other hand, could be the future of ultrabooks.
And this one have, in my opinion, a future a lot brighter and an easy line for MS to communicate on.