Two Paths, One Destination (Premium)

We can debate the relative merits of Win32 desktop applications vs. newer platforms, but Microsoft is moving very clearly in one direction. The problem? It’s not sure how to get there.

The good news? It’s doesn’t matter how it gets there.

You have presumably seen the two blockbuster news items from today: Microsoft delayed Windows 10X to early 2021 and will not include the backward-compatible Win32 container in that first release, if ever. And Microsoft is working on a subscription version of Microsoft 365---including Windows and Office 365---that will be delivered from the cloud.

These two stories are related, and not just because both were first revealed by my Windows Weekly cohost Mary Jo Foley: Both point to a future that we’ve been not coincidentally discussing a lot in the past few weeks. Many will call this future a realization of the 1990s dream of thin client computing. But I think it’s a bit more nuanced than that. It’s really about making the client more heterogeneous, where Microsoft doesn’t at all care what you use as long as you’re still running Windows applications.

And running Windows applications is a problem.

As we’ve discussed many times, Microsoft has been trying to move past the legacy Win32 foundation of Windows and to a more modern, secure, and reliable future. But each step it’s taken in this direction---Windows RT, Windows 10 S Mode, and Windows on ARM being the most obvious examples---has failed, and for the same reason. In each case, Microsoft made something called Windows that looked and felt like Windows but could not run all Windows apps.

And as I’ve observed many times, a version of Windows that can’t run all Windows applications is pointless. In fact, it’s arguably not even Windows.

To get from here to there, so to speak, something has to change. To date, the possibilities---that Microsoft’s customers have to stop using the legacy Win32 desktop applications on which they rely, or that Microsoft has to simply drop support for legacy technologies and evolve the platform more rapidly---has not worked. Microsoft’s customers do rely on legacy apps. And Microsoft will not abandon them.

But there is another way. Two other ways, really.

The first is the virtualization/container approach that was/is promised by Windows 10X. This platform would still run Win32 desktop applications, but would corral them in a technical container to prevent errant code from infecting the wider system and harming security, reliability, and battery life. It’s a good idea, and because it relies on a rich client---i.e. a real PC---it’s good for the industry. PC makers only make money on expensive premium products.

The second is to deliver those applications via the cloud. This requires two things: A substantial cloud infrastructure, which Microsoft has in Azure, and pervasive high-speed Internet, which I think we can all agree is hit or miss depending on where you are.

That ...