Windows 8 for ARM doesn’t contain manageability features for enterprise

With today’s release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Microsoft has also started giving more details about how Windows 8 will run on ARM. To go along with today’s big news, the company also published a Windows 8 project guide for businesses, and there’s some interesting information on how ARM devices will fit into the Windows 8 enterprise ecosystem contained within. Most notably, when talking about “choice in form factors,” Microsoft reveals that ARM-based tablets with Windows 8 will not be able to be remotely managed — these devices can only be deployed in unmanaged environments. That means businesses won’t be able to distribute apps remotely, pull reports, or otherwise remotely administer ARM-based tablets, which could be something of a deal-breaker for large corporations. This is likely due to the fact that ARM tablets don’t run the legacy x86 apps that are used now to manage Windows machines. If Windows 8 tablets really take off, we expect this to change, but don’t expect to remotely manage ARM tablets right off the bat.