None of this made Windows RT seem any more BYOD-friendly than Android tablets or iPads.

But a client announced by Microsoft will monitor the posture of the devices and enable downloading proprietary business applications to them. The client will communicate with an undefined cloud-based management platform that will be announced later by the team working on Microsoft's System Center.

The client's main function is to download and install Windows 8 Metro-style applications that are designed to work on both x86/64 and ARM devices. Without the agent, owners of Windows RT devices can only download applications that are stocked in the Windows Store or via Windows Update or Microsoft Update.

But Microsoft recognizes that businesses will create their own Windows 8 Metro apps that they want to deploy to personal Windows RT devices that employees might want to use for work, according to the blog.

The client makes this possible by connecting to the corporate management infrastructure and to a self-service portal, which displays applications that are available for each user to download. This provides a mechanism to download proprietary line-of-business Metro apps to employees without placing them in the public Windows Store. As the blog says, "... there is no reason to broadcast these applications to others or to have their application deployment managed through the Windows Store process."