timppu: Luckily it failed.
Luckier is, it was only limited to tablets.
Is that a good thing, especially for those who are not looking forward to use MS-powered phones and such, but are only interested in PCs as far as Windows goes?
Its a good thing to have the same operating system on any device to basically access the same set of applications and games and such on any device, as opposed to having separate apps for my Android device and Windows PC.
1. First of all, at this point it seems evident MS is losing the mobile market. The share of sold MS-powered phones has been decreasing, being now only about 2% of sold devices (Android is winning the market). It also seems MS is slowly realizing this, aiming their mobile products and services more to corporate users and less and less to home users, and putting more effort to cloud services than mobile devices.
That's where Windows 10 is supposed to patch up. To make Windows Phone more lucrative and accessible to developers, by spreading on as many Microsoft powered systems as possible, convincing developers to develop for Microsoft's devices only once and get that app working on all.
2. MS making design choices that benefit the mobile users but makes desktop use less lucrative. Case in point: Windows 8/8.1. Only die-hard MS fans will try to deny anymore that its UI was shitty for desktop PC users, it catered mainly for touch-device mobile users. Windows 10 user interface was kind of an apology from MS towards desktop users that they let down with Windows 8.x.
As a non MS-diehard, I deny that the Windows 8 UI was shitty. What I agree is that desktop users are just jumping on any hate bandwagon they see hitting Microsoft, that's what happened with Windows 8. As a former Windows 8.1 user myself, I believed into their hate until I slowly made a dualboot with Windows 7 and Windows 8, and soon enough, I found myself deleting Windows 7. On a desktop nonetheless with only a mouse and a keyboard! Nowadays, I pretty much require a start screen for any desktop OS I get my hands on. The start menu has become a joke and I don't see why people are still clinging into it. But hey, both Start Menu and Start Screen are present in Windows 10, so they "apologized" to the Start menu diehards, and pleased the Start Screen diehards.
3. To me MS seems to be pushing the idea that PC gamers would mainly play mobile WinRT games (same that you'd play on your MS phone), while Real Gaming(tm) would take place on their walled-garden Xbox consoles where they make more money than from PC gaming (that darn Steam must be a thorn in MS' side). The kind of games that MS is pushing to Windows PC nowadays seem to be those simpler mobile games. See where MS has released its Halo series after the early Halo 1-2 games:
http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/halo-series Only Halo: Spartan Assault and Halo: Spartan Strike have arrived to PC as well, and they are more like a mobile games, available also for MS tablets/phones and iPhone/iPad. Everything else is XBox-only.
That's only Microsoft's games. If you want to release games on the Windows Store that only use the keyboard and mouse, I've been there. If you want to release games on the Windows Store that only uses a touchscreen, I've seen that. If you want both, I've met that. Plus I hate this separation of 'mobile' and 'PC' games if you excuse me. Other than that I've no comment.
The days of MS really pushing AAA PC gaming with Age of Empires games, Midtown/Motocross Madness series, lots of different PC gaming peripherals etc., seem to be long gone. To me it seems now the only interest MS has for PC gamers and users is to somehow lure them to migrate to WinRT and XBox users, so that they don't become e.g. Android and/or Linux users instead. And this to me seems to be the main reason MS is pushing an uniform OS on PCs and mobile devices, migrating PC users to other MS ecosystems (mobile devices and XBox).
Not really their case, they don't want you to not migrate to Android or iBrick or whatever. They want you to use their services, hence their apps on Android and iBrick, hence their phone companion app that pairs with not only Windows Phones but also Androids and iBricks. They want you to use their services like OneDrive, OneNote, Cortana, Xbox, Outlook, Office, etc. Their migrate everyone to the Windows ecosystem seems like a secondhand strategy to me, but it nonetheless can boost the market share to Windows Phone if they do the unified thing right. I wonder what would be the reaction if Apple did a Windows 8 though!