Ask Paul: April 8 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Not surprisingly, given the events of this past week, we have a lot of questions. Actually, I do too.
Panos, Windows 11, and you
will asks:

I know you have talked about the Microsoft Hybrid Work event from this week, but overall I felt like this was just an odd marketing job for Windows and more specifically Windows 365.

Yeah. I found this event curiously unsettling for several reasons: Windows 11 shipped in incomplete form last October and this was a chance to make for that, but instead, they pretend that it’s the greatest release ever shipped. This was an opportunity to explain exactly what will be in the first feature update, but they didn’t do that. Panos Panay has always come off as a bit fake to me, and this event is maybe the best example. (Seriously, the rehearsed little chuckle when he said “security” one time made my skin crawl.) But the biggest issue I have with the Windows team, in general, is communication, and this event took that to 11 (sorry) by never once explaining when/where/how any of these features will ship; one of the Windows 365 features (offline) was literally described as something they “envision” coming to this product. What.

Personally I did not get excited about anything Panos was saying and he has that same "sales" approach for Windows that he did for Surface...and it is starting to get old.

Panos has always been divisive as a speaker. Some people really like his style and some people don’t. But more importantly, I don’t believe he has any particular interest in, let alone expertise with, Microsoft’s business offerings at all. I would point out how crazy it is that the guy running Microsoft’s least successful hardware business was promoted to run Windows, but then his predecessor was the guy who previously ran Windows Phone.

Not everything I do sitting at my Windows desktop is a passionate thing, it just is not. I am reading emails, updating work documents, using a line of business app, or fixing some driver that decided to go on a kamikaze mission deep inside Windows and mess $^&@ up.

Exactly. But you know what? Reading that, I feel like you might have actually explained why Panay is running Windows. At least from Nadella’s perspective: he likes the guy’s passion. Which I sometimes feel is manufactured.

But, I digress and wanted to ask two questions: First, do if you think the future Microsoft is going toward is Windows 365 in that the desktop Microsoft would like you to have is hosted, and you just launch it from an app or from a thin client? Second, do you think Microsoft will position ARM/mobile devices as the thin clients used to connect to Windows 365?

So, those are related. No, I don’t think the future of Windows is literally ARM-based thin clients accessing Windows 365. But this is Microsoft: these things will be among the choices available to customers. Some will go that route. Some will use their own personal and more traditional W...