Yeah, but I doubt they can make it mandatory.
Note I didn't say that I doubt they'll try. I just don't think it's feasible from an implementation standpoint, between the legacy codebase and established user expectations.
I know you're a programmer. I haven't written much (well,
anything) for Windows/Win32/etc., but I wouldn't be surprised if you have. And, if so, could you answer this: how does their legacy codebase hold them back from, say, making it difficult or unpleasant to install things from outside of their own 'app store'? Honestly asking. Does Windows legacy code really prevent them from, say, making it so that unsigned executables (barring the use of an exploit) couldn't be loaded and run? Why?
If you mean to say that they'll try and end up having to backpedal--well, that'd be the reasonable outcome. I'm not sure reasonable outcomes are the only ones on the table now.
It would, of course, be utterly suicidal to try and do this in a corporate environment. But then, that didn't stop them from releasing 2 out of 3 of their last major OS revisions.
It's hard to see what their logic would be, trying to push that on a corporate environment. What would they gain? How could they possibly not understand what they'd stand to lose?
However, were they to lose the personal desktop, I think they'd probably, eventually, start losing the corporate environment--but maybe not for a long, long time. I'm thinking about how the home OS and work OS being the same probably cuts down on training costs--even if they lost the desktop tomorrow, it'd be a while before the familiarity with Windows in the workforce really began to drop off.
That's what Apple's been doing for years, culminating in finally releasing Mavericks as a free upgrade.
Difference is, Apple's a hardware company.
If Microsoft did it, it'd be more of an intermediate step to a subscription model than what Apple is doing--like where Adobe has gone with their creative suite. Though it remains to be seen whether doing that with the creative suite was really such a good idea, it's clear to see why Adobe thought it was one: frogmarch people into upgrades, continually extract money from your customers, cut down on piracy.
Microsoft has a persistent problem of having trouble moving people to newer versions of their OS. It's not a
completely unreasonable thought that a subscription model might solve the problem.
I'm not sure it
would work, mind you--and I have the faint hope that taking a stab at that transition would further loosen Microsoft's hold on the desktop--but I could certainly see intermediate steps towards it.
If I recall correctly, the rumor was something like 'compelling improvements + yearly releases + low price = profit'. It's conceivable, if you consider that Microsoft can make compelling improvements to Windows--maybe 'compelling improvements' is code for 'we'll only patch it for a year'. I don't know. It would probably help if I could actually remember or find where I heard about it.
Meh. $50 upgrade is how they got me to buy Windows ME. Not falling for THAT again.
Funny you should mention Windows ME. My first machine was a ME box, just as ME was coming out. I was on that for a good 4 or 5 years, I think. Overpriced Gateway PIII 733MHz with integrated graphics and nothing else to really soften that blow; it did not dazzle, it did not amaze. I'd tell stories if I had any: that was my calibration for 'normal' at the time, and after XP I sorta forgot all about it.
Getting back to the subject: $50 would be too much. $20, on the other hand, would be fine, no matter what stinker was produced. If nothing else, I could have the pleasure of tearing it apart with the benefit of my experiences with it to lend authority to my arguments--that's probably worth the $20 itself.
Aside from that, I don't actually
have a copy of Windows right now. I don't want to pirate it, don't want to spend ~$100 on an OEM copy I can't move from machine to machine (see: "I don't have a copy of Windows right now") and even if I could afford to drop $200 or more on a retail copy, I wouldn't do it because I don't actually want to
use Windows--not for day-to-day stuff--I'd just want it to run that copy of Saints Row 3 that I've got moldering on my Steam account. I'm not really willing to pay $200, $100, $70, or even
$50 for that--but I'd shell out $20.
Maybe I want my thousand dollar PC/tab to act like a tablet when I'm carrying it and act like a PC when it's docked, and not one or the other or some weird Frankenstein amalgamation of the two all the time.
Absolutely. I want different things out of a mobile UI than I want out of a desktop UI. I'm just not sure you can reconcile the needs of the mobile use case and the desktop use case in a decent way with a single design. So, obviously, two designs.
However, unless we want to take a significant amount of freedom from client applications in terms of how they may do their UI, a lot of the burden must necessarily fall onto the common programmer. That, I think, is where the dream of convergence breaks down.