Various devices currently get 3 versions of Windows-- 8, RT and Phone. However Microsoft head of devices July Larson-Green suggests the company might merge the three operating systems into a single, ultimate, version of Windows.
"One Windows to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them," as Tolkien might have put it if he were writing about the IT industry and not elves and hobbits...
Speaking at the 2013 UBS Global Technology Conference, Larson-Green says "We have the Windows Phone OS. We have Windows RT and we have full Windows. We're not going to have three."
Such plans for convergence of major products makes sense following the massive Microsoft management reshuffle of June 2013 creating the so-called "One Microsoft." As part of the reorganisation work on Windows across console, mobile and PC now falls to new OS engineering group headed by former Windows Phone group leader Terry Myerson.
"We do think there's a world where there is a more mobile operating system that doesn't have the risks to battery life, or the risks to security," Julie Larson-Green continues. "So we believe in that vision and that direction and we're continuing down that path."
Also hinted at are Microsoft plans for wearable devices-- another topic the conference touched upon about is sensors. "Just as the mouse was an invention, touch was an invention, there will be the next new way to interact," Larson-Green says. "And that's why we've been focusing on natural user interface for a while, working on that."
Rumours claim Microsoft is working on at least two wearable devices-- a smartwatch and, at least according to the Wall Street Journal, Google Glass-style eyewear, both probably (surely) built with help from recent acquisition Nokia.
Go Julie Larson-Gren at the UBS Global Technology Conference