Panos Panay, Head of Windows & Surface Departments, Leaves Microsoft

[DeathtoGnomes]

My bet in 10 years is no consumer PCs, and Microsoft split into corporate (Azure) and consumer (Xbox, Game dev) arms.

This was what m$ was probably going to do after they announced the "last windows version" before win11 came about.

 

[Luke357]

While I know Panos Panay has accomplished some good things at Microsoft, I don't consider the Surface and its related product lines part of it.

Display resolutions too high for usage on systems that small? Yep.
Horrible keyboards? Yep.
A kickstand that means you can never use one as a true laptop on a hotel bed while traveling or really, any of them as a laptop without a lapdesk? Check.
Non-upgradeable storage and memory? Check.
A non-replaceable battery on a device costing $800 and up, producing more e-waste? You betcha.
Quirks and odd hardware choices (e.g., Marvell wireless adapters on some models, Surface Dock issues) that require regular firmware updates that may or may not fix the issue? Ummm....
A much-higher-than-normal percentage of battery issues compounded by other issues mentioned here (non-replaceable, poor support)? Yes!
A system that's nearly impossible to repair compounded by very poor product support from Microsoft? Absolutely.

I've experienced too much pain working with the Surface Pros of other users (of multiple generations) to say they're a good product. Useful, perhaps, but I found so much more useful products with better reliability and support, for the same money or less. The Surface Pro is a "just okay" tablet, and a lousy laptop/ultrabook replacement.

I used to have a Surface and had every single issue you described (except the dock/driver issues). The form factor while strange is great for someone who already has a beefy desktop and wants a machine that can be their "leisure device" but can be used for actual work sometimes. I bought a Latitude 5285 (added a 2280 1TB drive) and it fixes all but the stand and RAM upgrade issues.

 

[trsttte]

Windows will have an increasing presence in the cloud - and that will be great in a lot of cases, think office drones and thin clients - but desktop clients will continue to exist and be an even bigger part of the market for the foreseable future. For all the use cases that can easily be migrated to the cloud and would benefit a lot from that there's even more use case where you need a desktop right besides you.

Not to mention of course wide spread broadband access is still an illusion, not even developed countries have consistent and widespread access let alone the majority of under developed world

 

[Aleksandar_038]

Windows will have an increasing presence in the cloud - and that will be great in a lot of cases, think office drones and thin clients - but desktop clients will continue to exist and be an even bigger part of the market for the foreseable future. For all the use cases that can easily be migrated to the cloud and would benefit a lot from that there's even more use case where you need a desktop right besides you.

Not to mention of course wide spread broadband access is still an illusion, not even developed countries have consistent and widespread access let alone the majority of under developed world

That will be a great benefit only to Microsoft. End users are getting short stick there in any case...

 

[trsttte]

That will be a great benefit only to Microsoft. End users are getting short stick there in any case...

If you think about the amount of money companies spend managing IT fleets and managing compliance policies and so on the move to the cloud will greatly aliviate that. Microsoft will make a boatload of cash of course, but companies will also save a lot that ideally could go back to the business but reallistically will go into "performance" bonuses for the bosses

End users don't really matter, we're just beta testers now, it has been a long time since Microsoft bothered charging the end consumers.

 

[cvaldes]

End users don't really matter, we're just beta testers now, it has been a long time since Microsoft bothered charging the end consumers.

That's reflected in pricing. I can pick up a Windows 10 Pro license key for about $7. A Microsoft Office 2021 key is about $25.

A lot of their consumer revenue has shifted to subscription fees like much of the software industry.

 

[trsttte]

I can pick up a Windows 10 Pro license key for about $7. A Microsoft Office 2021 key is about $25

Neither of which you absolutely need to pay. Windows barely bothers checking for a license and besides a water mark only a couple customization options are locked out and most office features are available online in the cloud for free (cloud word and powerpoint are perfectly fine, excel only for basic stuff).

What subscriptions are they charging consumers, are that many people subscribing to 365 personally? Gamepass! Of course, nevermind

 

[cvaldes]

Neither of which you absolutely need to pay. Windows barely bothers checking for a license and besides a water mark only a couple customization options are locked out and most office features are available online in the cloud for free (cloud word and powerpoint are perfectly fine, excel only for basic stuff).

What subscriptions are they charging consumers, are that many people subscribing to 365 personally?

I know you can get 98% of the features by not activating Windows. But here at TPU, you see people with build lists that put full retail price Windows licenses as part of their build. So clearly some people expect to fork out that money.

As for how many people are subscribing to 365 personally, I have no idea. I doubt if Microsoft breaks out this in their quarterly financial statements but there's probably some industry analyst who will guesstimate a number. But for sure some people want the 365 features and are willing to pay for it. Millennials love subscription services (there's even one for kitchen sponges).

The cloud Office apps are fine for people for people with limited needs. Google and Apple have their own too. But I'm okay shelling out a dollar a month for a standalone Office license (assuming 24 month ownership). That's cheaper than an Office 365 subscription fee. But in the end, it'll probably be 5 years before I retire an Office license, so it's really 40 cents a month.

I still don't trust cloud office apps. I need conditional formatting and some more advanced features in Excel anyhow; the cloud versions are less developed anyhow and they don't work so great without a network connection. And I have a handful of documents that I wouldn't want to put in the cloud anyhow (legal, financial, health).

Luckily, it's easy to get full fledged Windows and Microsoft Office at a pittance in 2023. But that's not going to pay many software engineers' salaries. I assume somehow enterprise software revenue is still covering this and that Microsoft looks at PC software as a P&L operation.

For sure, Microsoft has not been consistent over the years. Outlook? Free or payware? Why did they get rid of Outlook Express? Entourage on Mac? Windows versus Mac versus mobile? Cloud versus desktop?

 

[Aleksandar_038]

If you think about the amount of money companies spend managing IT fleets and managing compliance policies and so on the move to the cloud will greatly aliviate that. Microsoft will make a boatload of cash of course, but companies will also save a lot that ideally could go back to the business but reallistically will go into "performance" bonuses for the bosses

End users don't really matter, we're just beta testers now, it has been a long time since Microsoft bothered charging the end consumers.

Yes, that is in theory.

In practice, once you go cloud you are completely reliant to provider service. All your data, all your business is reliant on it. That is maybe acceptable for some "mumbo-jumbo" tech startup, it is maybe OK for third-grade juice producer from... somewhere. But for serious business, that is completely crazy from many standpoints - money is of secondary importance in that matter. Not to mention some more "serious" business, or any company outside the USA "zone of influence" who can tomorrow be left without anything if the USA implements some kind of embargo... Which is happening quite often recently

So, no, I do not think that is proper way forward for anyone. The Internet and Personal Computing era was all about freedom - and now we are going in completely opposite direction. Only software companies are the ultimate benefiter of these processes.

All that speech about free market, freedom, and we are actually heading to completely centralizing everything and leaving it in hands of two - three biggest players That is crazy.

 

[trsttte]

Yes, that is in theory.

In practice, once you go cloud you are completely reliant to provider service. All your data, all your business is reliant on it. That is maybe acceptable for some "mumbo-jumbo" tech startup, it is maybe OK for third-grade juice producer from... somewhere. But for serious business, that is completely crazy from many standpoints - money is of secondary importance in that matter. Not to mention some more "serious" business, or any company outside the USA "zone of influence" who can tomorrow be left without anything if the USA implements some kind of embargo... Which is happening quite often recently

So, no, I do not think that is proper way forward for anyone. The Internet and Personal Computing era was all about freedom - and now we are going in completely opposite direction. Only software companies are the ultimate benefiter of these processes.

All that speech about free market, freedom, and we are actually heading to completely centralizing everything and leaving it in hands of two - three biggest players That is crazy.

You raise some good points but there are several nuances and different ways to implement cloud services. Exchange has been in the cloud for ages but there are still "people" running on premise exchange servers - which is dumb and a problem whenever a new vulnerability is discovered because microsoft is much faster at patching their cloud offering then a random company can ever possibly be at pulling and installing the update patch.

Windows moving more to the cloud also doesn't necessarily mean microsoft will be the only provider for it - they obsiously would like and prefer it that way but it's unlikely to happen. And in the end, we're still beholden to microsoft whether windows is in the cloud or not.

 

[Aleksandar_038]

You raise some good points but there are several nuances and different ways to implement cloud services. Exchange has been in the cloud for ages but there are still "people" running on premise exchange servers - which is dumb and a problem whenever a new vulnerability is discovered because microsoft is much faster at patching their cloud offering then a random company can ever possibly be at pulling and installing the update patch.

Windows moving more to the cloud also doesn't necessarily mean microsoft will be the only provider for it - they obsiously would like and prefer it that way but it's unlikely to happen. And in the end, we're still beholden to microsoft whether windows is in the cloud or not.

Yes, maintenance is always a problem. And an expense to the company.

But compared to the possibility of relying on someone, somewhere... Like I said, for any company outside the US "zone of influence" it is unacceptable. It is political, not a technical question.

Now, multiple providers could be interesting, but that is theory - what we look now, on multiple IT fronts, is two to three companies monopolizing market and then abusing it to the moon and back - both in hardware and software world...