The Future of Windows? (Premium)

With the fiercest and most high-profile advocate for Windows leaving Microsoft, your fears for the future are understandable. So let's take a moment to consider what this week's changes mean for Windows and for the many millions of people who still use, rely on, and prefer this platform.

Two points up front.

My career, such as it is, was built on writing about the future of Windows. As you may recall, the tag-line for Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows, which I created and then ran from 1998 to 2015, was "the future of Windows ... today." I've always focused on the future, not on the current or the past. With Windows 10, this has gotten interesting, because the future is never more than 6 months away. I feel that this schedule is untenable, and given this week's changes, that might finally change.

Second, I've been discussing Microsoft's de-emphasis of Windows and its related heightened emphasis on the cloud for the past few years. And ... I've gotten a lot of pushback from those readers who believe that Windows is somehow still vital and can somehow grow in any meaningful way. So let me just reiterate my central point about the Windows 10 era (thus far): This is a declining business that is only important to Microsoft because of its big installed base in businesses. The company's efforts with regards to enthusiasts and consumers are laughable and amount mostly to insular cheerleading and nonsense features that few people want, need, or will use in the real world. It is noise meant to distract the few remaining engaged people in the community from noticing what is really happening.

That last bit is hard for me, personally. What I care about is probably what most of you care about: The client-side technologies and features in Windows that we do rely on every single day. I do not care about the enterprise cloud all that much at all, sorry. I care about Windows, and I care about the people who use Windows.

So let's be honest here.

Let's look at what Satya Nadella wrote in his explanation about this week's changes. And let's pull out the real meaning of those words. Let's analyze what's happening here.

To be clear, the announcement was not about Windows per se. It was about a broader structural reorganization that also impacts other parts of Microsoft's businesses. But that is, I think, a smokescreen. This was really about removing the highest-placed and most vocal advocate for Windows from the equation so that Mr. Nadella, most famous for being a Wall Street darling and talk show circuit guest, can continue down the path that has brought him---if not Microsoft---his greatest success: Kill of legacy businesses and heavily promote future businesses instead.

Here's what I see in Satya Nadella's memo with regards to Windows.

This was premeditated. And Nadella had been plotting Terry's ouster for some time. "One transition we have been planning for is for Terry Myerson to pursue his next chapter outside Microsoft." S...

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