Microsoft: services only; Windows: faded away

Microsoft has clearly failed with Windows Mobile, although they kept the project for now, probably to help the new Andromeda OS that they are working on (being a highly modular Windows 10 targeting virtually any platform type). Both these OS-es, while they are very interesting and were/are highly expected from a developer point of view, came and will came a lot late to the market, i.e. to the end user. And the developers follow the trends that the users follow, more than they follow the OS producers themselves.

Starting with Asia (but the trend is worldwide) users seem to go more mobile each year, many “millennials” adopting a mobile-only style. In this context, Google (with Android) and Apple (with iOS) are the clear winners. Microsoft remains with server side, cloud services, and some dreams about HoloLens (which seems to be late too or not necessary now, as ARCore and ARKit are live on phones already, Unity supports app development for them as well, while I see people are not much into holograms yet anyway.)

(You might argue that Microsoft recently stated they entered quantum computing too, but I don’t know what to say yet; it’s something I’m still digesting. Still, I honestly don’t think this will change the story, since qubits seem better as cloud services as well.)

Speaking about services and the cloud, Microsoft seems to invest much in Office 365 (which is unbeaten for productivity, and for which they offer very good Android and iOS apps!) and on Azure (now at parity with Amazon‘s services) as cloud offering. However, focusing on the server side development, they seem to be working hard to enable everything to run on Linux too, instead of Windows Server! .NET Core (including ASP .NET Core and Entity Framework Core) is the best proof. And SQL Server as well, although free databases like PosgreSQL can now be easily integrated with .NET Core too.

Moreover, you can now develop .NET Core apps on a MacBook too, using the free Visual Studio for Mac, and Xamarin is also provided there if you want to do cross-platform development for iOS and Android using C# without getting a PC at all!

In conclusion, sorry Satya, seeing Microsoft fading Windows away big time while they struggle to become a services only company makes the company not that cool anymore. At least for me, a Microsoft fan since Windows 3.1. (Confirmed by Bill Gates?)

(Don’t get me wrong: I understand that this is the best plan for Microsoft nowadays, due to mobile mistakes. But I’m free to move away if I see the blue screen too much, ain’t I?)