Though enough people use Microsoft's tablet devices to make them worthy of consideration when your company undertakes mainframe modernization, this company seems to be recalculating its tablet strategy.
David Goldman of CNN says that this includes getting rid of the software that the company originally designed to run on its tablet devices, Windows RT.
This comes as Satya Nadella, Windows' CEO, has announced a more streamlined approach that will be released by 2015. In Goldman's view, the invention of RT in the first place was a "flop," largely because the software wasn't compatible with other software and had a cumbersome relationship with the "desktop" version of the OS.
But not everyone thinks the same way about this system. As a counterpoint, Mary Branscombe writes for ZDNet that RT isn't getting abandoned so much as repurposed in a different guise, one that makes more sense for the company's future.
"RT is the basis of Windows Phone now; it's the NT kernel running on ARM with the WinRT runtime," Branscombe writes. "WinRT is how universal apps get on the Windows Store on x86 devices and on Xbox."
She also added that this program could exist in background functions and that the Desktop version of Windows is only a part of the whole package of functionality it provides.
Don't count out the features of certain legacy systems, especially when they come from as big a name as Microsoft and could find their way into other important programs. Your legacy application modernization plan should continue to take them into account.