One Windows to rule them all? Be careful what you wish for

Long before it landed with a thud, Windows 8 marked Microsoft’s official relaunch of its one-operating-system-on-every-device strategy. This singular approach (spoiler alert!) worked out in the end for the hobbits, but Microsoft may face an even longer, more torturous path in its pursuit of precious market share against the almighty iPad.

After all, iPads are slick and easy, and Apple doesn’t much care that iOS works only on its smartphone and its tablet and not on a Mac. What other move did Microsoft have besides waving its hands in the air and talking fast — really fast — about how great it would be to have Windows on everything?

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But it’s not a new ploy. The same message went out when Windows NT stormed on the scene, touting “the ease of a desktop operating system on your server” (and largely killing Novell NetWare in the process). Then came the first Windows phones hawking a similar message of Windows compatibility across devices. It was even tentatively proffered when Microsoft made a weak play into the DVR market using Windows Media Center and Xbox, billing the combination as a “familiar” way to record television — albeit five times more expensive than a standard DVR or TiVo.

How many Windows does it take to install a lightbulb?

Now it’s back with an Apple-busting vengeance. “Multiple operating systems are dead! Long live the uber-OS: Windows 8(.1).” Except as Peter Bright from Ars Technica points out, it’s not one OS. It’s three. Even there, Peter is wrong — it’s actually four.

He forgot about Windows Embedded 8 (I guess 8.1 now?), the sneaky OS that creeps into devices where you don’t expect to see a Microsoft logo — cash registers or those clunky things into which FedEx staffers punch numbers after they hand you your package (soon to join the endangered species list in light of Amazon’s plan for flying squidbots). While Windows Embedded shares some of the kernel innards with the other three, it’s different, both in how it’s deployed and managed.

Apparently four operating systems are too much, not just for Peter or Mary Jo Foley’s rumor factory, but also for Microsoft, which wants to tie Windows together across any kind of hardware. That’s all well and good for the Ernst Stavro Blofeld types in Redmond, but my question is from the user perspective — that is, the office drone looking to go home at the end of the day. Do I really want a single OS that covers all my devices? Maybe I’ve been a snarky recluse too long, but my gut says “God, no!”

The vast majority of OS and software innovations coming out of Microsoft have been geared toward productivity. This company of roughly 100,000 works day and night on new ways to keep the rest of us working day and night — with the occasional Xbox binge for variety. Microsoft certainly isn’t alone in that regard. Add it up, and undoubtedly millions of brilliant minds across thousands of technology companies are constantly trying to do the same. The result has been a culture shift that has quietly but inexorably leeched away our free time. Everywhere you turn, there’s some beeping bell or blinking icon reminding you of work yet undone.

From toy to tool: The iPad takes a turn

That’s why the Apple iPad was such a success. At the start, the iPad had nothing to do with work. Other than an email client, it didn’t do work and wasn’t meant to. It’s a toy, and I don’t say that in a dismissive way. It was a purely personal device for playing Angry Birds, light Web surfing (as long it didn’t involve Flash video), or annoying your friends with vacation photos.

The iPad only made its way into the office because it looked cool. Everyone wanted one. Then one of those sick, twisted, productivity-obsessed executives had to ask, “Hey, can I do my presentation on one of these?” That grinning idiot ruined it for the rest of us. Immediately the race began to incorporate the iPad into work environments. Software companies started spouting about iPad-enabled “line of business” apps and the advantages of getting to all your work tools from any device in your house except your baby monitor.

It’s not a utopian vision. It’s a careful-what-you-wish-for, hate-yourself-in-hindsight mistake. When you turn off your Windows PC and go home (I know — it’s probably portable, so it’s coming with you, but at least it’s hibernating), you can grab your iPad and share an online coloring book app with your kid without thinking about work. That’s a nice break. That’s a necessary break if you don’t want to die of stress at 55. That’s the way it should be. That’s the way it was for my father. Home by 6 every night and relaxing — just replace the iPad with Johnny Walker and a nine iron in the backyard.

It’s not that way for us. The companies we work for today want us ready, available, and churning out whatever it is we churn out for as long as possible. If it’s the wee hours of Saturday morning, so much the better. It’s Friday as you read this. Ask yourself if you’ll be spending some time working this weekend, then ask if that’s something you do most every weekend.

Windows everywhere is just another way to lose your weekend. Windows on every device means Office on every device. Today’s Windows RT 8.1 Surface 2 tablets, though they can’t run the x86/x64 Office 2013 editions, have an Office 2013 RT analog pre-installed. And today, Office isn’t just productivity apps and email. If you own two or more Windows devices, you already know it sounds like church bells ringing when they all do the meeting reminder at once.

That’s not the worst of it. Office is also Lync, the great, all-seeing eye — the behind-the-firewall chat client that’s mutated into a communications monster with tendrils that include chat, voice, video, and most insidious, presence management. The last one lets your boss know if you’re toiling at your PC or if you’re frittering away valuable time with unsanctioned recreation. Sure, you can cheat and set your status to “away,” but you’re rolling the dice on whether he, she, or it decides to chat-ping you under the guise of some annoying request just to see if you’re really there. It’s already available for your Windows Phone and — wait for it — your iPad. Don’t look now, but it’s also eaten Skype!

The battle for the soul of the tablet

I don’t want any of that on my tablet. We’ve lost the fight for the phone, but dammit, I’m not giving up my tablet. Hang your single-OS theory, Microsoft! My tablet belongs to me. It’s my pictures; it’s my bathroom throne reading library; it’s my Angry Birds addiction; and, yes, I’ll say it: It’s my fart app. And I want it to stay those things without my boss suddenly popping up a video chat conversation asking me whether the quarterly report is done.

If we lose the tablet, what’s next? The TV? Pammy’s makeup compact? I don’t want to feel like I’m doing something wrong because I’m reading a novel in bed at 10 p.m. instead of working. We need some separation from work, some vestige of a personal life even if it remains technology-infused. I think more than one OS is a good way to start.

How many OSes do you run? And how much of a life do you have? Post your totals below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “One Windows to rule them all? Be careful what you wish for,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, follow Cringely on Twitter, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.