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IDK, I don't disagree with a single criticism in your post, and I'd generally agree that the overall decline of Windows as a platform has certainly been dramatic. That said, I think it's clear that given Microsoft's high profile failures at expanding Windows into the smartphone space and, with the exception of the Surface Pro, into the tablet space as well, managing the decline of Windows is a completely rational decision, strategy-wise. It seems to me that M$ properly understood that their platform was burning and largely succeeded in moving the crown jewels of their business into the cloud with 365/Entra/etc., and as long as they don't fuck up legacy Windows and Office badly enough to cause a mass exodus, they'll be as secure as anyone else can be in our glorious, cloud-based future.
That’s a fair assessment. It used to be their bread and butter, but they smartly repositioned. I still contend it doesn’t look good for them to have lost this generation’s console war, the smartphone OS war, and seem to be resting on their laurels with Windows. It shows a lack of vision and inability to execute. There are still a billion some odd Windows users.
Personally I was hopeful that the TPM gating for Windows 11 was the start of more forceful control over hardware so they could do a massive change for Windows 12 that would move on from legacy components. But I understand that’s not what their customers want. It’s just too bad that Windows is in such a bad state.
I still really feel like the lack of developer interest in windows is a major problem. Apple may not have the sway to enforce a 30% commission on apps like they do on iOS, but their guidance for making macOS apps is generally followed. Their developer community cares enough to follow their design guidelines and put polish into their apps. I don’t see the same for windows apps - there’s no vision or optimism about where the platform is going. Compatibility with old hardware means you’re going to see a lot of apps with windows XP/vista UI if developers aren’t passionate about the platform.
How I wish they would have just rested on their laurels. Windows 7 was fine. Windows 10 was fine. They could have just kept shipping security patches indefinitely, and people would have kept buying their real cash cows. If you absolutely need to have an entire pyramid of managers scrambling for bonuses, they could have shipped incremental updates for Windows 7, unified the UI a bit more and slowly brought in new security features - optionally, as user hardware allows. It never was going to be good anyway, so they might as well have kept it cheap and consistent.
But no. They needed to fuck with it heavily. Managers needed to leave their mark, and so we got Windows 8 and 11...
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There's very little developer energy for desktop applications for any desktop platform. Mobile apps and their promise of easy monetization has sucked up most commercial interest, and cloud-backed client apps get most of the rest. Even open source dev energy seems most interested in services, not desktop apps.
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