Microsoft Moves Aggressively to Secure Its Future (Premium)

This week’s blockbuster Azure Sphere announcement represents an astonishing confluence of several big themes we’ve discussed here on Thurrott.com in recent weeks.

This is a big story. And not just for the obvious reasons.

And certainly not because of security. Because it was announced at the security-themed RSA Conference this week, Azure Sphere is being positioned by many as “IoT security.” But that’s only part of the story. The least interesting part, frankly.

Since I’ve been obsessing over what Microsoft will do next on the client now that it has publicly demoted Windows, I of course focused on the Linux-based OS that the software giant is making. But that, too, is just part of the story. An interesting part, for sure. But only a part.

So let’s step back for a moment and consider what’s really happening here.

Microsoft often speaks about the digital transformation that is sweeping the industry and about its role helping its enterprise customers, in particular, make this transition. But there is a less-frequently communicated digital transformation happening here, too, and it’s the one I care about the most: Microsoft’s. Microsoft, which once lorded over the personal computing industry, is now trying to find its way in a more heterogeneous world that it focused on cloud and mobile.

Microsoft’s epic defeat in mobile is well-understood and doesn’t need to be repeated here. Likewise, the software giant’s future in the cloud is as well-understood. Just note that all of the software giant’s moves in recent years can be viewed through the lens of these two initiatives, one a success and one a failure.

So what is Azure Sphere really about?

At a high level, Azure Sphere supports the premise of my commentary of two weeks ago, Microsoft’s Role in the Next Wave (Premium). Which is that the “next wave” is what I call ambient computing.

Today, ambient computing is mostly about digital personal assistants on phones and in smart speakers. But those are limited and transitionary markets. According to Microsoft, the industry already ships over 9 billion IoT devices every year. That compares to about 1.5 billion smartphones and about 250 million PCs. That’s the potential here. Something that swaps even the smartphone market.

But Azure Sphere isn’t a big story just because Microsoft intends to play a role in ambient computing. Of course it does. It’s a big deal because Microsoft, very explicitly, intends to play a major role at every level of the stack imaginable. It’s not just providing AI-based cloud services and an Internet of Things (IoT) software platform. It’s doing everything.

Put simply, this is a public declaration by Microsoft that it will not miss the next wave.

The name Azure Sphere is interesting on two levels. Most obviously, it ties the platform into Microsoft’s Azure cloud services family. Less obviously, it kicks the Windows brand to the curb. This is the first public-facing operating system from Microsoft to not bear the Windows name since … when? OS/2, I think. Which Microsoft last contributed to in, oh, about 1990.

(Pedant alert: Yes, products like Zune, Xbox, and maybe some others could have had non-Windows-based OSes. But this wasn’t something Microsoft ever discussed publicly, with the exception of the Xbox One’s OS, which Microsoft clearly identified as being Windows.)

Anyway, the Azure Sphere name very correctly identifies that the rest of the platform will utilize, if not completely rely on, cloud-hosted Azure services. I find it interesting that very little was actually said about the top-level Azure services that may of most use in this market. Perhaps there is nothing new to say there, or perhaps it is waiting for Build.

Below this, the new Azure Sphere Security Service will securely broker communications between the cloud and compatible IoT devices, and from IoT device to IoT device. This piece explains the announcement’s RSA setting, I guess, and it is absolutely a differentiator for Microsoft. The theory here is that businesses need a trusted partner to move forward with their digital transformation. Microsoft is obviously that partner for the enterprise. Azure Sphere shows it wishes to bring that reputation and capability set to IoT as well.

Microsoft is also providing two platform components on what we used to call the client. The more traditional of the two, Azure Sphere OS, is that thing we often associate with Microsoft, an operating system. But it is not based on Windows. Instead, Azure Sphere OS is based on Linux. It is, Microsoft says, the first time it has ever distributed a custom Linux kernel.

(Pedant alert: Back during the Middle Ages, Microsoft did distribute its own UNIX variant called Xenix. And more recently, Microsoft has used Linux in its Azure datacenter switches. And added Linux capabilities to Windows 10. Whatever.)

Transitions like this are interesting, right? When Microsoft decided to kill the NT brand with Windows 2000—a product that was originally called Windows NT 5.0—it provided the product with the redundant tagline, “Built on Windows NT technology.”

That was 20 years ago. Today, Microsoft is similarly transitioning us from the old to the new, in this case claiming that Azure Sphere OS “combines security innovations pioneered in Windows” with its new custom Linux kernel and a “security monitor.” The result? “A highly-secured software environment and a trustworthy platform for new IoT experiences.”

Windows diminished, indeed.

The second client component is as unexpected as the first: Microsoft isn’t just making a new OS for IoT. It’s designing and making a new hardware platform, too.

As you may recall from my article Serious About Software? Make Your Own Hardware! (Premium), all major software platform makers are expanding their reach to include hardware components. In Microsoft’s case, the most visible example, so far, has been the Pixelsense Accelerator chip in its Surface PCs. But the software giant has also touted its custom component work in Azure datacenters and in its Xbox consoles too.

For Azure Sphere, Microsoft has created a new MCU (microcontroller unit), a tiny system on a chip (SoC) design that provides multiple ARM processor cores (of both performance and efficiency types), SRAM, flash storage, a security subsystem, multiplexed IO, and Wi-Fi networking on a wafer that is smaller and thinner than a fingernail. The silicon reportedly uses technology that Microsoft first developed for Xbox, though details on that relationship are scarce.

What this new MCU enables is “the intelligent edge” in the smallest possible form factor. As you may know, Microsoft’s “intelligent cloud and intelligent edge” mantra isn’t just marketing: The next wave will require AI smarts both in the cloud and at the edge (the client). These MCUs “enable ambient intelligence” in an MCU for the first time, the software giant says. Microsoft is making its own intelligent edge software and hardware. It’s a complete platform.

So here’s Microsoft. It just demoted Windows. It’s been busy embracing Linux in every way imaginable for the past several years. And yet. It was shocking—at least to me—to see the software giant announce its own Linux like this.

But this decision was pragmatic, a Microsoft hallmark, and it fits neatly into my “right tool for the job” mantra, which I’ve been writing about and discussing for years. Microsoft has spent—literally—decades componentizing Windows and trying to create various embedded versions of the OS over the years. And one is correct to wonder what this change means for Windows 10 IoT.

But the market—and basic reality—have spoken. Linux, for whatever reason, is smaller, lighter, and better-adapted for this usage. So Microsoft is adopting Linux where it makes sense to do so. It’s the right tool for the job.

There is still so much more to discuss here. But Azure Sphere demonstrates that Microsoft is serious about playing a major role in the future. And in doing so, perhaps side-step its presumed fate as the next IBM.

More soon.