It's not designed for IoT devices per se, the naming is just terrible. A comparison to OpenWrt is not warranted here, although to reiterate, the naming is terrible.
In a way, it is for "IoT" devices...but enterprisey things. Where I work we have it on a few devices that I guess you could call an "IoT" device. Unattended driver kiosks for truck scales, manufacturing equipment that requires windows, industrial control panels, etc.
That's what it is for. A lot of this stuff uses really old software, some of which the vendor doesn't even exist anymore, and it only runs on Windows so these control panels and devices need windows (unless you manage to get some of it working on wine but that's usually not viable in these cases).
So yeah, it's supposed to be a full desktop, because these devices often require it to some extent, albeit a little slimmed down and LTS.
I think HN would be surprised to learn just how many devices run windows out there in the world outside of silicon valley. Windows is everywhere you'd hope never to see it running at.
well, i am not surprised that anything with a GUI would run some form of windows, even ATMs. i would not have categorized them as IoT devices though, but fair point.
