The Andromeda Strain (Premium)

We expect Microsoft to release a Surface device, code-named Andromeda, sometime in 2018. Given the events of the past few years, we should reset our expectations accordingly.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may know that we recently got a dog. In doing so, I was quickly reminded of the differences between dogs, which I grew up with, and cats, which we’ve had as adults. Where cats are mostly standoffish and inscrutable, dogs wear their hearts on their sleeves. When anyone leaves the house, our new dog freaks out, like she’s never going to see them again. Every time someone returns home, they’re treating like a returning war hero.

This kind of behavior is endearing to some—I’m sure this is why most dog people love their pets—but I think it’s pathetic. Have some self-respect, dog, I often think.

The dog and her behavior remind me of tech enthusiasts. Or, more specifically, those Microsoft/Windows enthusiasts who just can’t wait to see Microsoft’s triumphant return to mobile, as they see it, with Andromeda.

The problem with being an enthusiast, especially one of the Microsoft bent, is that you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. I am an enthusiast, of course. But I’m not a cheerleader, and I’m not delusional about Microsoft’s product, services, or strategies. I am, if you will, more cat-like. Reserved. A watcher, not someone prone to jumping up and down and clapping.

You might try being this way when it comes to Andromeda. This one has “Microsoft’s next failure” written all over it.

The problem with Andromeda isn’t that Microsoft has been dropping consumer products and services like the bad habits that they are. Andromeda, like any Surface product, isn’t technically a consumer product anyway. Like any Surface, it will be aimed largely at business users and power users. What Microsoft calls creators these days. I prefer the term doers, but whatever. Creators works fine too.

No, the issue here is tied to how Microsoft is confining itself with Surface generally. And that it has basically ensured that anything it does with this product line will essentially be niche by definition.

I know. You’re probably thinking that Surface is successful, or profitable, or competitive. I’d point to the fact that Microsoft, at most, sells some single-digit millions of Surface PCs each year, and that its biggest success, such as it is, was getting half of the PC industry to copy the design of Surface Pro.

But that also neatly highlights the problem, too. The industry has not copied any of Microsoft’s other Surface PCs. And yet Microsoft keeps pushing forward with new form factors. I feel that this is preventing it from just making great PCs. Which is what the rest of the PC industry is doing. Microsoft believes it has a leadership role to play here, instead of just being a partner among equals.

I’ve complained previously about the myth that Microsoft and Surface have somehow reinvigorated the PC industry. That’s an insult to HP, Lenovo, Dell, Acer, ASUS, and other PC makers who have, in fact, been innovating in the PC space for years.

But you don’t even have to know what the exact Andromeda form factor is—something like Surface mini, perhaps, maybe with two side-by-side displays … for some reason—to know that it will fail.

It will fail because pen computing has failed, is such a niche sub-market that even Microsoft doesn’t bundle Surface Pen with its Surface PCs anymore.

And it will fail because hybrid computing is a nicety, not a necessity, especially in the traditional PC space where Microsoft’s aging customer base just isn’t all that interested in different, let alone weird and wacky.

And it will fail because note-taking is a commodity, because paper is still better, and because you can record meetings with any device, and you’re already carrying a phone anyway. This just isn’t something that’s necessary.

But mostly, Andromeda will fail for the same reason that Windows phone and Cortana failed: The ecosystem support is so bad that it basically doesn’t exist. If you’re going to argue that the e-book store in Windows 10 is the reading experience this thing needs, and that the combination of OneNote and Office is what puts it over the top, I’m just going to point at the calendar and remind you that this opinion is years past its sell-by date. It’s over folks, that ship has sailed. You’re just making the same old argument for a new product.

Here’s my advice. Be a passive observer on this one. Declare allegiance to logic and common sense, not to a brand or a company. If your only argument for Andromeda amounts to, “I just think it would be cool if…” then, I’m sorry. You already lost.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not “wishing” for Andromeda (or Microsoft) to fail. But I do get the vibe sometimes that I’m the only one who remembers what’s happened over the past several years. That some just aren’t thinking clearly when it comes to this thing. There is an irrational exuberance around Andromeda that is simply not deserved.

So, let’s see what happens. Andromeda, whatever Microsoft chooses to call the actual product, will no doubt be interesting, a curiosity. And I’m ready—hoping, even—that Microsoft will surprise me in a positive way. It does happen. Occasionally.