Sunday, November 22, 2015

The Real Problem with the Surface RT

When Microsoft introduced the Surface RT, people responded with disdain. It was a Windows tablet with a limited version of Windows. The tablet could run specially-compiled applications and a few "real" Windows applications: Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

Many folks, including Microsoft, believe that the problem with the Surface RT was that it was underpowered. It used an ARM chip, not Intel, for the processor. The operating system was not the standard Windows but Windows RT, compiled for the ARM processor and excluding the .NET framework.

Those decisions meant that the millions (billions?) of existing Windows applications could not run on the Surface RT. IE, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint ran because Microsoft built special versions of those applications.

The failure of the Surface RT was not in the design, but in the expectations of users. People, corporations, and Microsoft all expected the Surface RT to be another "center of computing" -- a device that provided computing services. It could have been -- Microsoft provided tools to develop applications for it -- but people were not willing to devote the time and effort to design, code, and test applications for an unproven platform.

The Surface RT didn't have to be a failure.

What made the Surface RT a failure was not that it was underpowered. What made it a failure was that it was overpowered.

Microsoft's design allowed for applications. Microsoft provided the core Office applications, and provided development tools. This lead to the expectation that the tablet would host applications and perform computations.

A better Surface RT would offer less. It would have the same physical design. It would have the same ARM processor. It might even include Windows RT. But it would not include Word, Excel, or Powerpoint.

Instead of those applications, it would include a browser, a remote desktop client, and SSH. The browser would not be Internet Explorer but Microsoft's new Edge browser, modified to allow for plug-ins (or extensions, or whatever we want to call them).

Instead of a general-purpose computing device, it would offer access to remote computing. The browser allows access to web sites. The remote desktop client allows access to virtual desktops on remote servers. SSH allows for access to terminal sessions, including those on GUI-less Windows servers.

Such a device would offer access to the new, cloud-based world of computing. The name "Surface RT" has been tainted for marketing purposes, so a new name is needed. Perhaps something like "Surface Edge" or "Edgebook" or "Slab" (given Microsoft's recent fascination with four-character names like "Edge", "Code", and "Sway").

A second version could allow for apps, much like a Windows phone or iPhone or Android tablet.

I see corporations using the "Edgebook" because of its connectivity with Windows servers. I'm not sure that individual consumers would want one, but then Microsoft is focussed on the corporate market.

It just might work.

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