Emil Protalinski at The Next Web:
At its Build 2014 conference today, Microsoft announced universal Windows apps, which work across PCs, phones, tablets, and eventually the Xbox One. In other words, the Windows runtime in Windows 8.1 Update 1 will be available to Windows Phone developers.
This is pretty cool, and I think one of those things that Microsoft can do that nobody else is doing right now. Buy one app, run it on desktop, tablet & phone.
One last snippet of Windows news while we’re on the subject: it’s now free on phones and tablets less than 9 inches in screen size. Microsoft is giving up a chunk (admittedly a small chunk right now) of Windows OEM licensing revenue in order to jump-start their presence in the mobile device category. The end-goal of this move will be to get even cheaper Windows devices into stores.
I’m not sure how successful the small tablet category for Windows will be (you might’ve seen we covered quite a few small Windows 8 tablets with no real winners in the bunch) but this feels like the right move for them.
The days of charging for an operating system (of any kind) are quickly drawing to a close.