Microsoft Windows 10 PCs will be in stores on launch day; Nadella pushes Windows 10 Mobile

There’s two quick bits of news to hit from Redmond. A number of news outlets had reported that Windows 10 wouldn’t be available on any OEM systems come July 29, despite the number of launch parties the company is going to hold. That report came from Bloomberg, but the news company has walked back the claim. It now states that Windows 10 will be available from “Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Lenovo Group Ltd. and Acer Inc.” It’s not clear if the report means that no other OEMs will have Windows 10 systems shipping on launch day, or if those systems will only be available online or when ordered from Microsoft’s Store. Upgrades will still roll out on a staggered launch schedule.
As we’ve said before, the entire affair is odd. It’s not unusual for Apple to announce a new version of an operating system before launching it, but once the company launches, it makes certain that every new Mac up for sale is stocked with the latest OS version. Microsoft’s shift to software-as-a-service has clearly hit some scheduling snags.

Nadella claims Windows 10 giveaway will boost Windows Mobile

There’s another interesting piece of Microsoft news out, courtesy of a sit-down interview company CEO Satya Nadella gave to ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley. During the conversation surrounding Microsoft’s long-term plans for Windows Mobile, Lumia devices, and the appeal of Universal apps, Nadella said the following:
“If anything, the free upgrade for Windows 10 is meant to improve our phone position. That is the reason why I made that decision. If somebody wants to know whether I’m committed to Windows Phone, they should think about what I just did with the free upgrade to Windows, rather than — hey, I making four more phone models of value smart phones.”
Foley, rather understandably, says she’s not following that leap of logic. Nadella continues:
“Because all of this comes down to how are you going to get developers to come to Windows. If you come to Windows, you are going to be on the phone, too. Even if you want to come to Windows because of HoloLens, you want to come to it because of Xbox, you want to come to the desktop, all those get you to the phone. It’s not about let’s do head-on competition. That will never work. You have to have a differentiated point of view.”
The claim seems to be that developers, excited by Microsoft’s activities with products like HoloLens, will be enticed to develop Universal applications. Once Universal applications are created, they work on Windows Phone by definition. It’s a win-win situation for Microsoft that allows the company to leverage its success in desktops and the standard application world while simultaneously guaranteeing strong results for Windows 10 Mobile — provided that developers adopt Nadella’s viewpoint.

The new Windows 10 (Build 10122)

The problem I see with this argument is that it ignores the role the modern Internet plays in accessing content. If I want to watch Netflix on my desktop, I don’t download an app — I visit the website. If I want to check my email, I launch a browser. If I want to send an instant message, I launch Trillian. The entire “app” approach that Microsoft tried in Windows 8 failed, in part, because it asked users to sandbox huge chunks of their available desktop space to run single-user applications, often in ways that ate entirely too much of the active screen.
I don’t want “apps” on the desktop, if an “app” means “A single-use application with a relatively fixed window space that does one thing or group of things and poorly integrates with the modern desktop.” I don’t think I ever will. Too much of what I do depends on drag-and-drop from other windows or being able to keep a number of applications visible simultaneously. Windows 10 cleans up many of the issues left over from Windows 8, but I’m not sure yet if it does enough to bridge the gaps that kept Desktop and Metro firmly separate in Windows 8.
Whether or not it does so isn’t just going to be a minor point. Nadella wants to sell Universal apps on Windows 10 Mobile as the gateway to complete operation across the entire Windows ecosystem. That’s a great idea. I love the idea of being able to access my phone via RDP the way I might log into a desktop, for example, or connecting to it via a third-party VNC-style application. The challenge here isn’t just with software compatibility, but with UI and design scaling.
Nadella is clearly hoping that some breakout technology and capabilities will be enough to woo developers to build for Windows, confident that in doing so they can access both the existing desktop infrastructure and a new mobile market. He may be right. But if history is any guide, UI issues and fundamental differences in how people interact with mobile devices as compared to desktops or laptops will prove a significant challenge.