Windows, Diminished (Premium)

Everyone seems to have a theory about what Microsoft could have done to stave off the death of Windows.

These theories are all wrong. Equally wrong are any opinions about what Microsoft might do now to fix things.

I understandable why people are looking for answers. I am too, to be fair. But I think it's time for a wake-up call. And a gentle reminder that we've been preparing for this day for years.

In fact, I've been discussing the fall of Windows for so long that it almost feels like a career. My reward for simply explaining what I've seen as inevitable has been a tsunami of criticism. But I'm just the messenger.

Two years ago, my message was this: Android and iOS---mobile---is the asteroid hurtling to earth to kill off the Windows dinosaurs. A potential extinction moment for Windows and for the PC.

"If you think PCs are a small part of personal computing today, it’s only going to get worse a few years down the road as an entire generation of Google-services-using, Apple-hardware-wielding youngsters streams into the workforce expecting to use the tools they’re familiar with," I wrote at the time. "Our children are not growing up on Microsoft technologies. To them, Microsoft is as relevant as Sears, AOL, or IBM."

That future of mobile devices powered by cloud services is unfolding all around us. And since we can mark the shift from PC-based computing to mobile/cloud-based computing to the release of the first iPhone, we can state with certainty that this new era is right now entering its second decade. This is not new.

And yet, for all my understanding of this transition, I still feel what amounts to a body blow whenever Microsoft takes yet another step back from Windows. I can't explain the psychology of this. I can just identify it for what it is. And try to reel it in, because this emotional for me in ways that I find confusing. And try to communicate this to you so that you might handle it a bit better than I do.

And on that note, allow me to state plainly that Satya Nadella is openly destroying the one thing at Microsoft that I care about the most. But let me be equally plain in explaining that he there is no fault here. For Microsoft to survive and thrive, it must move decisively to dismantle the past that is not working and make big bets on the areas in which it can lead moving forward. There's a lot more to it than just "the cloud." But that's an easy way to describe Microsoft's future clearly.

Getting from here to there is always an interesting journey. And a worthwhile debate.

You may recall my discussions about Windows 10 S/S mode, in which I've noted that the destination (a streamlined Windows that's been stripped of insecure legacy code) is the correct one but I disagree with how Microsoft is getting there (the one-way street that is S mode). It's a classic "getting from here to there" conversation.

But this thinking can and should be applied more broadly to Microsoft under Satya Nadella. ...