Microsoft To Keep Windows RT And Windows Phone 8 Separate

Microsoft has made it clear that Windows RT and Windows Phone 8 will be two separate platforms for the time being even though they are extremely close in their inner workings while belonging to the same unified Windows 8 platform.

Windows RT And Windows Phone 8 To Live Separately For Now

A statement from Microsoft’s senior product manager for Windows Phone Gre Sullivan has made it clear that Windows RT and Windows Phone 8 are to remain as separate OS’ despite their similarities at the core. According a statement provided to mobile focused tech blog Pocket-lint the company decided against making a phone version of Windows RT because having a separate OS makes very good sense at the moment.

Sullivan was being interviewed in London post the Tech ED event and there he mentioned that Microsoft believes the two operating systems should remain separate even though they are very close at their cores. And despite of being separate OS’, they would still help each other to jointly beat out the iPad in the market.

According to Sullivan, the company believes the unique aspect ratios and other aspects of a phone still makes it necessary to devote an entire operating system that is uniquely for the phone. He mentioned more convergence coming in between the various parts of Windows 8 but a discreet offering for Windows Phone is still going to be a reality. There will still be a lot of exchanges between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.

He even went on to compare the distinguishing between the iPhone and the iPad from competitor Apple. While both do run on iOS, the iPad is inherently different from the iPhone and requires unique code for apps to support it. Sullivan said where Apple has separated its Macs from the tablet and phone, Microsoft had merely separated just the phone from the tablet/PC group. On top of that, they have a lot of code that can be reused across devices and the same Metro user experience everywhere that unifies it all. He says Apple scaled up a phone OS to a tablet whereas Microsoft shrunk a full OS down to a tablet to offer more functionality. So it’ll be interesting to see the tablet landscape this time next year when the next iPad has dropped.