The trouble for Microsoft in the devices layer is that they only know horizontal domination. Maximum effort should be focused on making Office, Server, and all the other products less subservient to Windows and more in line with consumer needs and the reality of computing in 2013. The solution to the secular collapse of the PC market is not to seek to prop up Windows and force an integrated solution that no one is asking for rather, the goal should be the exact opposite.

The truth is that Microsoft is wrapping itself around an axle of its own creation. From the beginning of Stratechery I was adamant that this was a major mistake driven by Microsoft’s inability to imagine a future without Windows at the center from 2013’s Services, Not Devices: Nadella’s first event in April 2014 centered on the announcement of Microsoft’s iconic Office Suite on Apple’s iPad the apps had been developed under former CEO Steve Ballmer, but had been withheld from launch until the company had touch-centric versions ready for Windows-based touch devices. This seems obvious today in 2022, but it was a fairly radical point of view when Nadella took over Microsoft in 2014. So if that is your life, how do we bring, especially Microsoft 365, all of the relationships that are set up, the work artifacts I’ve set up all to life in that ecosystem of devices? That’s at least how I come to it and that’s where when Mark started talking to us about his next generation stuff around Quest was pretty exciting, so it made a lot of sense for us to bring - whether it’s Teams with its immersive meetings experience to Quest or whether it’s even Windows 365 streaming, and then, of course, all our management and security and even Xbox - that’s what is the motivation behind it.

The way I come at it, Ben, is that I like to separate out, “What is the system, what are the apps”? Of course, we want to bring the two things together where we can create magic, but at the same time, I also want our application experiences in particular to be available on all platforms, that’s very central to how our strategy is.įor example, when I think about the Metaverse, the first thing I think about is it’s not going to be born in isolation from everything else that’s in our lives, which is you’re going to have a Mac or a Windows PC, you’re going to have an iOS or an Android phone, and maybe you’ll have a headset.

In last week’s interview with Stratechery, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explained why the company was open to partnering with Meta for VR:

Spotify stock price forecast