The Future of Build? (Premium)

Forces within Microsoft have been working to kill Build for years. Now, the Coronavirus may end up helping those efforts.

As you may have seen, Microsoft formally announced that it was canceling its in-person Build 2020 conference after I broke the news first over a series of tweets on Twitter last night.

Here’s the official quote from the software giant:

“The safety of our community is a top priority. In light of the health safety recommendations for Washington State, we will deliver our annual Microsoft Build event for developers as a digital event, in lieu of an in-person event. We look forward to bringing together our ecosystem of developers in this new virtual format to learn, connect and code together. Stay tuned for more details to come.”

The thing is, I learned over a year ago that a handful of powerful Microsoft executives that I will, for now, leave unnamed have been working to kill Build for years. Their goal is for Microsoft to host a single gigantic, live, in-person event for its customers every year. Yes, it’s called Ignite.

Part of the impetus for this plan involves corporate politics. (And here I must be a bit careful because those who follow Microsoft closely might be able to figure out who’s behind this plot.) Certain executives who have moved from positions in other parts of Microsoft to Azure now see Build as competition for their own show.

Another part, however, is more historical, if related: Build came about as part of a power play by Steven Sinofsky when he took over the Windows organization. For political reasons, Sinofsky decided to kill PDC, Microsoft’s previous developer conference, because it was created and controlled by the firm’s developer organization. Sinofsky pulled Windows development---and Server, and other things---under Windows during his brief by tyrannical rule, and the death of PDC was part of that effort. Sinofsky instituted a “not invented here” purge, which extended to the Windows product itself; he even planned to kill NTFS, as you may recall.

Anyway, it should be obvious to everyone that a company like Microsoft can host multiple live virtual events every year, and that those kinds of events---plus smaller regional events and roadshows---and that such things would satisfy the needs of most developers. Not helping matters, Google hosts its own enormous developer show, I/O, at around the same time as Build. And that show has proven to be more newsworthy and interesting to the press and, sadly, to developers as well. Microsoft putting its developer content into a show that is roughly halfway, schedule-wise, between each Google I/O does make some sense.

The executives in question came pretty close to killing Build a year ago, I was told at last year’s show. Now, with Coronavirus killing off Build 2020---at least as a live, in-person event---I’m worried that these same executives will have the ammunition they need to finish the job. Build, after all, is...