http://liliputing.com/2013/09/thin-line-windows-rt-windows-phone-get-blurry.htmlMicrosoft has had a winning thought --
"Let's get rid of RT for tablets and beef up our phone OS to the point it can run full x386 style apps on a tablet."
Low cost Bay Trail chipsets from Intel in phones and tablets will make this sort of thought possible. AND if MS can pull it off, they can reach full concurrence before anybody else and they have finally come up with a compelling reason to pay them $100 a year in MS 365 tax (providing that yearly tax covers ALL your devices every where you have or use them).
Microsoft can stage a comeback in the USA phone/tablet space, a big one .... if they can pull themselves together and cooperate internally to do it. However, they will still have no world wide presence to speak of.
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Microsoft only has one way to go in the USA right now, and that is up.
Chrome Browser is the #1 browser and Android is the #1 phone OS right now. Apple is #2 and shrinking. Microsoft is currently around #3 spot (everywhere but on the old traditional desktop PCs where old OS products still rule on all those old pre-existing machines).
If they do something smart and SOON, they will go up in USA phone/tablet space market share. If they dawdle through the first half of next year, they will be fighting off Firefox and Tisen and Sailfish and BlackBerry and Cyanogen for their #3 spot.
Which market space you are in has a lot to do with what rank you are in right now. Tisen and Firefox are slicing out South America and Indochina. Android is strong in Europe, but Sailfish has just been launched by Jolla with very strong Scandinavian/German language support in their own home market.
Which price point zone you are in has a lot to do with what rank you have right now. Android has moved up scale now, but Firefox for example can run on old obsolete price depreciated single core processors quite nicely, which means a full function smart phone can cost as little as $80 in US dollars.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271258990669 And please do note these cheapie phones sold out their first runs ASAP so there IS a market for a very low cost (low function) "feature phone" even here in the USA -- just think of all those Walmart pre-paid phones that move out each year.
Year 2014 could be very interesting to watch ..... it could be the year of the Intel Bay Trail Chipset Microsoft single OS comeback in the USA.
ALWAYS REMEMBER, MORE NEW PHONES AND TABLETS WILL BE SOLD THIS YEAR ALONE THAN EXISTED IN ALL YEARS PREVIOUSLY ..... AND THAT THE USA MARKET IS CONSIDERED SATURATED AND A VERY SMALL "NEW PHONE" MARKET IN THE WORLD WIDE PHONE SALES.
THERE WILL BE MORE FIRST TIME PHONE/TABLET USERS IN 2014 THAN EVER BEFORE OR EVER WILL BE AGAIN. NONE OF THESE FIRST TIMERS WILL HAVE EVER TOUCHED A DESKTOP PC KEYBOARD (and likely never will). Their first OS will be their beloved favorite .... it is what they learned on.
Remember, none of these people speak English and their new phone/tablet will be a major purchase, like you or me getting our first car.
Year 2014 will be a paradim shift year for this reason alone.