They could have had desktop apps on RT; they chose, specifically - to disallow that.
I won't belittle those that accomplished it, by suggesting it is as trivial as a mere recompile, but the existence of a completely functional Quake 3 on RT (when in a semi-death jailbroken SW state), and MS's own version of Office RT (2013) shows a pretty full selection of API's all present and functional, including USB mouse/audio drivers.
Office on RT - implicitly already acknowledged desktop apps as important - which shipped on-device. But oh - no. noone /else's/ software is important. make a store version (so we can have 30% of your sale).
Would Adobe/whatever have ported their suites; probably not. They never had to decide.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
