Will Windows 9, and all future Microsoft OSes, simply be called ‘Windows’?
Will Windows 9, and all future Microsoft OSes, simply be called ‘Windows’?
There is an increasing amount of evidence that Microsoft is preparing to drop all of its different brands of Windows — Windows Phone, Windows 8, Windows 9, Windows RT — and simply call them all Windows. When Windows 9 is unveiled at the end of September, it might be called Windows — no numeral, no identifier, nothing.
The idea would be that, in the mind of the consumer, Windows is just Windows, and that all of these different names and flavors are just confusing (“Why is it called Windows Phone if it can’t run my Windows programs?”). Getting rid of all that complexity and returning to the old way — where Windows is synonymous with personal computing — would certainly be a coup for Microsoft. But just as it shot itself in the foot with Windows RT, consolidating on just “Windows” could be fiscal suicide if Microsoft’s various operating systems don’t indeed come together as one harmonious platform.
In the latest Windows Phone ads, for all of the new Lumia handsets and Cortana, “Windows Phone” isn’t mentioned at all, save for a small “windowsphone.com” URL in some of the videos. Check out the ad below for the Lumia 930. “It’s Windows, so it works with all of my stuff here,” the actor says, indicating a Windows 8 tablet.
In a cute Cortana vs. Siri ad, neither Windows or Windows Phone is mentioned at all:
And, the icing on the cake: One of Microsoft’s biggest hardware wins — the HTC One M8 for Windows — is for Windows, not Windows Phone. These observations were first made byMichael Gillett.
Lest you think this is only happening on the mobile side of things, Microsoft has also been scaling down its use of “Windows 8″ in its desktop/laptop/tablet ads, too. About nine months ago, around the time that Windows 8.1 launched, Microsoft started calling Windows 8 “the new Windows.” These ads use the same messaging as the Windows Phone ads; the same kind of music, the same split-screening, the same closing sequence with the new Windows logo and just the text “Windows.”
Prior to Windows 8.1, all of Microsoft’s ads ended with “Windows 8″:
So, what’s going on?
There are two or three options here. Either Microsoft has realized that consumers just don’t get about whatever comes after Windows (8, 8.1, Phone, etc.), and so there’s no point complicating matters, or it’s a precursor of Microsoft’s big move to unify all of its operating systems. A third possible option is that Microsoft started by trying to get away from the negative sentiment attached to Windows 8 (thus it being called “the new Windows”) — and now, perhaps following some positive reviews from market researchers, the company is doubling down on simplified messaging.
Read all of our Windows 9 coverage
This could either work very well, or it could backfire horribly. As you may know, Windows RT was a disaster — it was called Windows, and outwardly it looked just like other Windows 8 devices, but it was fundamentally different (it ran on an ARM chip and couldn’t run any Desktop applications). This resulted in lots of upset customers and OEMs. As a result, Microsoft is now combining Windows RT and Windows Phone internally, and the Windows RT name is gone forever.
In that first Lumia 930 ad, the actor clearly says “it’s Windows,” and then indicates that it works well with a Windows 8 tablet. Yes, Microsoft is making some moves towardsuniversal apps that work on both Windows Phone and Windows 8, but consumers are still in for a big shock if they buy a Windows Phone thinking it “runs Windows.”
Still, Microsoft has clearly stated that it wants to get to the point where all three of its big platforms — Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox — are one big unified family. When it comes to things like syncing and cloud backup and new-style Metro apps, Microsoft has it easy. The Desktop side of the equation is a different matter entirely, though. The new Windows, with all of its tiles and full-screen apps, is so, so different from the Win32 Desktop. If Microsoft can convince the public that the new Metro interface is “Windows” then it might just work — but that’s a long and risky road indeed.
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