The Way Forward? (Premium)

Bear with me as I continue processing this past week’s news and its ramifications for the future of Windows. Today, I’d like to stop worrying about what happened and think about what things might look like going forward.

Microsoft will continue investing in Windows 10, of course. There is a sizable audience there, and it’s not going away anytime soon, if ever.

Let’s discuss that audience.

As most people know, the Windows user base is largely made up of business customers. I estimate that about two-thirds of the total user base is business-related.

For this and other reasons, some fear that Microsoft will “abandon” consumers. I’ve been told repeatedly by company executives that this will never happen, that there are important synergies the individuals who use Windows and the businesses that license it.

But I wonder if the desire to serve a consumer audience isn’t some vestigial leftover from the days when Windows was all things to all people, and all Microsoft had to do was show up to dominate a market. The Satya Nadella-led transformation that’s currently underway at Microsoft has led to the unthinkable—Windows, for the first time in the firm’s history, is no longer led by anyone who reports directly to the CEO—so why can’t this mentality change?

There’s no way to accurately predict the future. But given that Microsoft today believes it can still make a difference in consumer and that its core strength, arguably, is productivity, it’s reasonable to consider how the company can serve both businesses and consumers going forward. And what role Windows might play.

It’s likely, then, that Microsoft will step back from the consumerization of Windows—which is mostly nonsense features and terrible attempts at monetizing the product via advertising—and focus instead on productivity. This is a laudable goal, as it serves the needs of its core customer base (businesses) while staying true to how most individuals use the product: To get work done.

Windows 10’s integration with smartphones and other mobile devices is another likely area of increased investment going forward. After all, the Windows user base uses smartphones much more than their PCs. Those phones are more personal and are with them all the time. And they are more engaged when using those phones than they are when using the PC. This is an area where Microsoft might make a difference.

It makes sense. By integrating Windows 10 with smartphones, Microsoft makes both devices better. More to the point, doing so makes the PC more relevant in an era in which it is otherwise fading. You can begin a task on the phone and continue it later on your PC, with its bigger screen, keyboard, and mouse. (I assume the reverse will be implemented in the near future as well, though those who work on Office documents stored in Office 365/OneDrive have basic “continue on phone” features today.)

I like this positioning: PCs are for doers, after all. But there are challenges, in particular with the iPhone.

Apple’s lock-in strategy allows it to offer seamless cross-device functionality—like copying an item on an iPhone and then pasting it on a Mac—that Microsoft simply can’t duplicate let alone improve on, especially for those with iPhones.

But thanks to the open nature of Android, Microsoft can offer a better experience on that platform. And we’ve already seen several examples of Microsoft bringing its own experiences to Android. They have the Microsoft Launcher, most obviously, but also lock screens, keyboards, the Microsoft Edge web browser (with Continue on PC), and much more. (Microsoft also brings as much of this as it can to iPhone, of course.)

Separately, Microsoft has also worked with device partners like Samsung to offer various Microsoft apps and services on third-party handsets. But I’m wondering if more couldn’t be done along these lines. If there isn’t some market for a Microsoft-designed Android device lineup, perhaps Surface-branded, that would provide this Microsoft experience out of the box. That would provide its customers—consumers and businesses alike—with that way forward on the devices they actually use.

One question is whether such a product line would make sense from a profits/revenues perspective, I suppose. But if the bar for this decision is whether Surface makes any sense overall, then I think the answer is yes. If businesses are embracing Surface Hub en-masse, which they appear to be, surely there is a market for a—wait for it—Surface Phone too.

To be clear, it’s 2018, and that Surface Phone would need to be an Android device. But such a device would suffer from none of the downsides to a Windows phone, and would work normally as an Android phone. It’s a low-risk bet for both Microsoft and the people who might buy such a device.

The key here is how Microsoft might differentiate such a device. Aside from all the obvious software and services, the key bit that Microsoft is missing from mobile, I think, is Continuum, the ability to dock the phone and use it like a PC. Microsoft had this with its Windows phone platform, and it has a version of this technology working in some Surface PCs. It would be a natural fit.

Microsoft could also make a bigger bet on mobile. And the rumored Andromeda device, which I’m told is still being developed, could also satisfy Microsoft’s need to continue to invent new hardware form factors. Yes, this need could also be a vestigial hold-over from the past that might later be exorcised. But this product could still happen. I won’t speculate about it further here, other than to address the obvious: Nothing should be off the table at this point.

One of the more interesting trends of the Nadella era has been a refinement of the brands that Microsoft uses to promote its wares. On Surface devices, we’ve seen that brand defer to the broader Microsoft brand, and today’s Surface PCs feature a Microsoft logo, not a Surface logo. Likewise, Office 365 is giving way to the more all-encompassing superset of Microsoft 365, and I expect to see this happen on the consumer side too. How does this trend impact Windows?

I think it already has: Windows as a brand is being de-emphasized, and the “Windows experience” that was once going to spread across a variety of device types—PCs, of course, but also Windows phones, Xbox consoles, connected IoT devices, and more—should now more rightfully be considered a “Microsoft experience.” No one cares that the Xbox One is “based on” Windows 10. Nor should they.

But this isn’t just branding, it’s positioning. The Microsoft experience is something that can happen on non-Windows devices, including dominant Android handsets and iPhones. It’s something that can include much more than just Windows, such as Microsoft’s productivity applications ands services. The Microsoft experience, as I see it, is the user experience for Microsoft 365. It’s how we as users are—and will—interact with Microsoft.

Put another way, if Microsoft 365 can subsume Office 365—and it is now doing so—why can’t it also subsume the smaller and steadily shrinking Windows? Given what’s happening with Windows, this suddenly seems obvious to me: Of course it will. It is happening right now, I think.

So, yes, Windows will continue to evolve. But I think the heady pace of the past two or three years is coming to close.

Microsoft can and should extend support for Windows 10 versions for longer time periods to accommodate its most important customers, businesses. It can and should slow down the pace of major new feature updates, and just dribble in functionality over time as it does with Office 365. (There are no big band releases there, nor should there be.) And it can and should focus more new functionality on the pragmatic, productivity-focused improvements that will continue to differentiate PCs from Macs and Chromebooks. And stop giving in to nonsense features that make for fun demos but are rarely used by real people in the real world.

The central success of Windows 10, as I see it, is two-fold. First, Microsoft stepped back from the touch-first nonsense in Windows 8 and returned the product to a PC-centricity that better serves the customer base. Second, and against all odds, Microsoft successfully transitioned this legacy product into one that can be reliably updated on a fairly-regular basis, somewhat like an online service.

These are both important advances, though the first addresses an unnecessary and self-inflicted wound. The second change is what lets Windows fit into the Microsoft 365 product line and gives it a place at the table moving forward. It’s the only thing that makes Windows acceptable within the Microsoft of today.

And that’s Terry Myerson’s legacy right there. This is the way forward for Windows, even though it will happen without his oversight. Windows, which was once at the center of Microsoft’s success, culture, and worldview, is now just a component of its future. And a minority one at that.