Panos, Word by Word (Premium)

In writing about Windows for over 25 years, I’ve also always been interested in the people and strategies behind the product. For sure, there have been ups and downs. Victories and setbacks. Product design wins and epic duds. It’s been quite a ride.

Without getting into the various personalities of everyone who ran the Windows organization over the years, let’s just say that my relationships with these people have ranged from actual friendship to outright toxic. And in one case, Steven Sinofsky, I experienced both. I don’t mention Sinofsky here to denigrate the man, I’m sure he had his reasons. But rather to contrast him with the current Windows chief, Panos Panay. And it’s pretty easy to sum up neatly.

Panay is the anti-Sinofsky.

That assumes, of course, that this week’s missive about the future of Windows is in any way representative of the man, his goals, and his broader strategy for moving the platform forward.

Where Sinofsky was overly-wordy---you may recall I used to write posts specifically to summarize his overly-long missives into something understandable and readable---Panay is concise, almost too brief. Where Sinofsky was pathologically driven and would pen massive posts over weekends without the foreknowledge or feedback from his PR team, Panay seems more methodical, quiet, and calm. Sinofsky was a ruthless engineer with no people skills; Panay is driven but he seems like more of a designer, more of a team player.

You get the idea. They’re different.

But they’re also similar, right? They have to be: You can’t get to this level of leadership in a company like Microsoft without having certain political skills, ambition, and drive. I don’t care too much about that stuff, per se. But in reading this week’s Panay post, I’m consumed by the need to understand what he wrote. With Sinofsky, I had to sift through thousands and thousands of words to find the true meaning; with Panay, there are far fewer words, and all of them, I think, hint at deeper meaning.

So in the spirit of my Sinofsky tear-down posts of almost a decade ago and with due respect to Mr. Panay, who I feel is a good person, I’d like to consider what he really says in this week’s short missive. And what he doesn’t.

As a team we have been spending a lot of time with our customers, OEM partners and teams inside and outside of the company listening and learning. The feedback we are hearing is energizing, and if one thing is clear it is that Windows plays a critical role in helping people navigate the times we are in.

After an opening bit about how life has changed for everyone, the first thing Panos discusses is feedback: Panay and his team, he says, are listening to their customers. We’ve heard this before. In fact, one of the worst aspects of the Sinofsky era was the constant drumbeat of not listening to customers all the while pretending publicly that they were. The Windows Insider Program exists solely because ...