Microsoft has always had a "Windows on every PC" philosophy, since the dawn of Windows. (Prior to the first release of Windows, the philosophy was "Microsoft software on every PC".) The new releases of Windows 8 for PC and smart phones continues that philosophy.
I think that philosophy is changing.
The different platforms of tablets, desktop PCs, and servers, are, well, different. They have different needs, and they serve different purposes. This is especially visible with the Surface RT, which doesn't run Windows EXE files. (Technically, it does. It runs the Office EXE files for Word and Excel. Windows RT does not allow you to install EXE files.)
In the mobile/cloud world, the tablet and server run different programs, with different purposes and with very different designs. Tablets focus on the user interface, and servers handle data storage and calculations. Even today, Windows for the desktop is different from Windows Server.
I expect Microsoft to move away from "one Windows on every platform" and introduce variants of Windows for each platform. Microsoft will keep the "Windows" name; it is a recognized and trusted brand. But the Windows for tablets (Windows RT) will be different from the Windows for servers (Windows Server) and those will be different for Windows for the desktop. I expect Windows Phone to be very similar to Windows RT.
Such a product line matches Apple's offerings, and in a sense matches Google's. Apple iOS powers phones and tablets; MacOS powers their desktops. Google offers Android for phones and tablets, ChromeOS powers their laptop, and they have a number of cloud offerings for server-based computing.
A split along hardware lines also makes sense technically. The three platforms offer different capabilities and must provide different types of services. Mobile devices must be location-aware; servers must provide fail-over and reliability and probably run as virtual servers. Forcing one Windows API on all platforms is wasteful.
Microsoft could handle this split by forking the code base and developing different products, but they have another option: modules. They may choose to make Windows modular, using a single kernel with modules that can be added to build different configurations. A modular Windows is not that far-fetched; Windows already has a kernel/module design. In addition, it creates possibilities for other combinations, such as a specific Windows for embedded systems, another Windows for gaming, and yet another Windows for high-reliability systems.
I think the future of Windows is one of multiple variants, each serving a specific need.
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