Windows RT is dead, according to a Microsoft slide shown on WinBeta.org today. It will not receive updates. It has no upgrade path, although it may get a few consolation features. It was a bad idea in the first place. And now, Microsoft may be making the same mistake again with Windows 10.

Names and stories matter; they tell you what things are. Windows RT, a variant of Windows 8 designed to run on ARM-based tablets using chips from the likes of Qualcomm and Nvidia, was doomed because of a bad name and a bad story. Crammed in between Windows Phone and Windows 8.1, RT ran a subset of desktop Windows applications that were distributed through the Windows app store. Most notably, it had a full copy of Microsoft Office relatively early for low-cost tablets.

But Microsoft could never properly communicate exactly which apps did and didn't run on RT, confusing potential customers who then went for either "real Windows" or iOS tablets. The killer messages for Windows are productivity and gaming, but the vast majority of line-of-business apps and the vast majority of Windows games never ran on RT.

RT was made irrelevant when Intel came out with x86 processors small and cheap enough to fit into $299 tablets like the four-star Lenovo Miix 2 8" , thus making slates trying to leverage a Qualcomm price and power-efficiency advantage look irrelevant when competing against "full Windows" tablets able to run all Windows apps, with no compromises.

Windows 10 Mobile Phone Series For Phones and Tablets

So now we have Windows 10 coming. Windows 10 will run on mobile phones, 7-inch tablets, 10-inch tablets, laptops, and desktops. But wait! There are two versions of Windows 10, and they are incompatible. They run different apps. Both are called "Windows 10."

The evolved Windows Phone, which is designed for both ARM and x86-based processors, and which runs on devices with 8-inch or smaller touch screens, runs one set of apps. The evolved Windows 8.1, which runs only on x86 processors and has a non-touchscreen mode, runs another set of apps. But Microsoft is giving them the same name.

This has resulted in a lot of confusion in the press. I've heard Microsoft partners calling the new phone OS "Windows 10 Mobile," "Windows Mobile 10," "Windows Phone 10," and "Windows 10 for Phones." Today's slide lists it as "Windows Mobile 10," which I've had Microsoft executives tell me is wrong. The Microsoft website calls it "Windows 10 for phones." I think our house style around here at the moment is "Windows 10 for phones and tablets," but that's subject to change.

This is important because Microsoft can't afford to have consumers be confused. Pretty much all Android devices (in the U.S.) run pretty much all Android apps; the same goes for iOS devices. (When Amazon forked Android, it changed the name to Fire OS.) The same needs to go for "Windows 10," or less technical buyers will once again be confused and frustrated as to what they're actually purchasing.

Related Windows 10 Coming This Summer

When Do We Get One Windows?

There needs to be one Windows, or two. Ideally, one. Not three. Microsoft's two major competitors have gone for the two-OS strategy—Mac OS and iOS, Android and Chrome OS. Microsoft's impenetrable advantage in home and enterprise computing has always been the epic depth of its bench of third-party apps. Throwing that away, as it did with Windows Phone, really weakened the company.

I'd be very interested to see if Microsoft can find some way to truly bring the power of Windows 10 to mobile platforms. Maybe that's some sort of virtualization or streaming-app solution. It's amazing to me that OnLive and Nvidia, among others, have shown Windows games streaming to Android devices, but that there's no official, well-supported solution to stream Windows games to Windows phones. Microsoft will stream Xbox games to some Windows devices, but for now, it looks like that excludes all the ARM-based phones and tablets. Microsoft has been very unclear on this. I hold out hope.

If Microsoft is truly going the two-OS route, it should commit. Embrace Windows 10 for phones as a well-integrated, well-optimized sibling of Windows 10, and stop trying to conflate the two. The last thing we want to see is Windows RT all over again.

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