![]() What Nadella’s change management also enabled was, to steal the title from Joanna Stern’s delightful interview with Nadella, a new “Start” for Windows: The rest of that article walks through how Nadella led Microsoft to that point, including Office on iPad, several of his strategy memos, and killing Windows Phone I know it’s a cliché to say that something makes for a great business case study, but this really makes for a great business case study! Thus my assertion at the top, that the story of how Microsoft came to accept the reality of Windows’ decline is more interesting than the fact of Windows’ decline this is how CEO Satya Nadella convinced the company to accept the obvious. ![]() Such a move didn’t seem possible a mere five years ago, when, in the context of another reorganization, former-CEO Steve Ballmer wrote a memo insisting that Windows was the future… What is more interesting, though, is the story of Windows’ decline in Redmond, culminating with last week’s reorganization that, for the first time since 1980, left the company without a division devoted to personal computer operating systems (Windows was split, with the core engineering group placed under Azure, and the rest of the organization effectively under Office 365 there will still be Windows releases, but it is no longer a standalone business). Smartphones first addressed needs the PC couldn’t, then over time started taking over PC functionality directly.PCs became “good enough”, elongating the upgrade cycle.The Internet dramatically reduced application lock-in.The story of Windows’ decline is relatively straightforward and a classic case of disruption: This remains CEO Satya Nadella’s biggest triumph I recounted how he shifted the company away from its Windows-centricity in 2018’s The End of Windows: What gives Microsoft more freedom-of-movement, though, is that Windows is no longer the core of its business. Of course Windows remains essential software, with a billion-plus userbase of its own, and a critical part of the enterprise landscape in particular (although, as the company highlighted in the presentation, COVID re-established the importance of the PC for consumers as well). Facebook and app install advertising) it is Windows that feels like it has nothing to lose. iOS 15 will bring new experiences to a billion users, new APIs provide new opportunities for developers, and Apple isn’t just building in features that hurt competitors, but creating new ones (i.e. Today is the opposite: Apple reigns supreme over the computing landscape. Apple, on the other hand, had nothing to lose. That’s not a surprise, when you think about it: back then new versions of Windows meant new experiences for basically everyone who used a computer, new opportunities for developers, and new reasons to worry for competitors scared that this might be the year Microsoft made their products a feature. It feels like a bit of a role reversal from twenty years ago when Microsoft would have grand over-produced events at CES while Apple put on budget productions at Macworld. I really enjoyed this event coming in at a tight 44 minutes and 51 seconds, it had a sort of playfulness and lightness that felt like a big contrast to Apple’s COVID-era commercial-like presentations. (Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella even told a reporter he’d be happy to accept FaceTime onto Microsoft computers.) There’s already a Microsoft Teams app for Mac, iPhones and Androids. ![]() Microsoft’s building its Teams software into Windows in a similar way as Apple’s FaceTime is built into Macs - except Microsoft doesn’t want it to be exclusive. The company’s expanding its support for the Android app for example, allowing people to more easily run phone apps on their computer. The software giant said Thursday that its next major version of Windows will launch as a free upgrade this fall, offering a host of new features that in some ways appear designed to position Microsoft as the company whose products work with ones from Apple, Google and pretty much anyone else. But with Windows 11, Microsoft wants to break that mold. There’s also Google land, whose Android software powers an array of phones, tablets and computers. There’s Apple world, which includes the Mac computer, iPhones and iPads, all designed to work together to help you share files, video chat and watch TV as easily as possible. ![]() When you choose a computer or smartphone to buy these days, you have to pick between several factions. From Ian Sherr, writing about last week’s Windows 11 announcement for CNET:
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