Build is (Not) Boring (Premium)

If you think Microsoft Build is boring, you’re missing the point. This isn’t a consumer press event. It’s a developer show.

Which is a weird thing to have to remind people. But because both Google and Apple treat the opening day keynote for their respective developer shows, Google I/O and WWDC, as consumer press events, Microsoft Build seems to be less interesting. But this is an unfair comparison: Microsoft doesn’t waste the time of its show attendees by presenting consumer apps and features and getting cheap press. It provides a technical overview to the real platform work that it’s doing. For developers.

That said, there are conversations to be had about Build and whether the content is relevant to developers. I’ve heard several times this week, from a variety of people, some of whom I know and value their opinions, that Build 2019 seems a bit off. A bit less interesting than was the case in recent years.

I do know that Build is in trouble, that there are people working within Microsoft to put an end to this show for political reasons. I’ve been told that this might be the last Build, or that certain key players won’t participate next year in the hope of planting the final nail in Build’s coffin. Some would like to see Microsoft have only a single very large conference every year, despite the obvious issues with such a scheme.

I’m not sure what’s happening there. I do know that Build exists for terrible reasons, that Steven Sinofsky’s Windows organization created killed PDC and replaced it with Build as part of a wider effort to wrest control of everything related to Windows and take it away, in this case, from the developer organization. As such, Build is very much the final major vestige of those terrible years. And so maybe it needs to be replaced, or at least evolve.

Within the Microsoft community, of course, there is an enthusiast-driven angst related to Microsoft’s ongoing retreat from consumer products and services. And as Build focuses more and more on enterprise-focused cloud services, and much less on client innovations in Windows, that angst rears its head again and again. Build is boring to this audience as well.

For its own part, Microsoft describes its corporate structure in terms of four clouds, which in no way map to its actual business organization structure: Azure, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, Microsoft 365, and Gaming. What’s interesting is that three of the four clouds have major client components. For example, Windows and Office 365 are represented by Microsoft 365. And Xbox and Windows (and mobile) are represented by Gaming.

Less interesting, at least to those looking for news about future Windows and Xbox releases, Build is focusing mostly on enterprise cloud topics. We got a whiff of Xbox excitement in the Build 2019 keynote thanks to a brief Minecraft AR demo. And Windows has been represented by a bit of Microsoft Edge, Terminal, and WSL news. But that’s abo...