What Happened? (Premium)

Yesterday's Build 2023 keynote appearance by Windows lead Panos Panay was surprisingly flat, but it wasn't entirely his fault. And while I know some of what happened, what I don't know is why.

Of course, that could be said for a lot of what happens these days with Windows. But this event was different, weird. And to describe it accurately, I have to unfortunately get into some opinions about the people involved. I do so with trepidation because public speaking is hard---I'm terrible at it---and because I want to be fair. I'm not here to hurt anyone.

But I also care deeply about Windows and the people who use it. And it is an unfortunate fact that the part of Microsoft that oversees this product has done poorly by its customers in recent years. And that the performance we witnessed yesterday rates almost as lowly as what we saw during the dark years of Steven Sinofsky and Julie Larson Green. At the very least, it needs to be discussed.

Microsoft's developer show used to focus on Windows, just as the company did, but with its transition to the cloud, things quickly shifted, and starting in 2015, Microsoft's cloud efforts became the focus, with Windows relegated to a day two keynote. This year, the focus shifted yet again, to AI, and the day one keynote was hosted by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, though Yusuf Mehdi, recently thrust into the spotlight again because of Bing AI, got lots of stage time as well. They then transitioned into a segment with Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, a rare on-stage personality, who interviewed OpenAI's Greg Brockman, and then the AI story for developers with Scott Guthrie.

Yesterday, Microsoft hosted its second full day of Build 2023 with a second keynote titled Shaping the future of work with AI. It opened with a segment hosted by the bland Rajesh Jha, who spent about 45 minutes recapping the week's news about the Microsoft 365 Copilot and related AI-based productivity tools with the help of Yina Arenas (the "mother of the Microsoft Graph"), Wamwitha Love, and Archana Saseetharan, all of whom were better on-stage presences. And then it moved onto a similar-length segment with Windows chief Panos Panay, where things really went off the rails.

Panay is awkward on stage at the best of times. But he was off, spectacularly off, on Wednesday. And it was clear why: he had nothing new to tell us because Microsoft had opted to announce all of its Windows-focused news---the Windows Copilot, Dev Home, GitHub Copilot X integration in Windows Terminal, and changes coming to Windows 11, most likely in version 23H2, key among them---the previous day alongside its cloud-based AI announcements. This didn't just take the steam out of Panay's talk, it obliterated it.

Fortunately, Panay was also helped by better, more confident speakers like Shilpa Ranganathan, Pavan Davuluri, and, especially, Steven Bathiche, who was the real highlight of this keynote: seriously, go watch his part of the presentation. It wasn't just ...