[sterlind]

Amazon and Google are likely to make cloud-ready NT distros, cutting off Microsoft's last cash lifeline on rival clouds. So it would have significant costs.

On the other hand, Flash once had API dominance and lost it as they (fortunately!) abdicated to HTML5. MS is now extremely aware that Win32 isn't the future - they even cut the OS into pieces and reorg'd NT under us (Azure.)

.NET Core is the way forward for the company. I could totally see us releasing "NT Core" without the Win32 userland, and WSL, Modern and .NET Core as the official personalities.

We could even release the shell that way. But it would pull a bunch of developers away from new scenarios to put onto an ever-shrinking desktop market.

Most likely we'll just see all new products become cross-platform and the execs will wait until a new "iPhone moment" comes along to get ahead with consumer OS.

[Joeri]

But it would pull a bunch of developers away from new scenarios to put onto an ever-shrinking desktop market. Most likely we'll just see all new products become cross-platform and the execs will wait until a new "iPhone moment" comes along to get ahead with consumer OS.

I'm still fascinated by that. The iPad Pro and the Chromebook have taken away a lot of windows' traditional market. But ... you look at how people are using them, and they're using them as laptops. Why couldn't windows take that place?

The logical answer is: because of all the legacy. Windows is too easy to break (even microsoft can't upgrade it without breaking it), and too hard to use, and it needs major investment to fix those problems. So, why stop investing in windows when it's the lack of investment that makes it unable to compete? I'm still struggling to understand that one.

It seems microsoft's management has concluded they can't and won't compete after windows 8 flopped, and they'll just stretch out the decline of windows as long as they can and hope to catch the next wave. I'm sure google and apple love them for doing that, but I still don't quite understand it.

[pjmlp]

Amazon has supported Windows VMs since at least 2010, the first time I did a Windows cloud based deployment.

So far it hasn't been that interesting for Windows projects.

Regarding the ever-shrinking desktop market, laptops and 2-1 are "desktops" as well.

Plugging phones into docking stations will never caught on.

[sawantuday]

Whats your logic behind that? Current phones with 10gb of ram and 8 cores already surpass average computers. Its only a matter of right user interface.

[zozbot123]

It's not about the hardware (who am I kidding there, of course it is... ARM SoC's, blech). It's about the software side of the equation. Maybe Purism can pull this off, but Android definitely can't (and not for lack of trying, see Samsung DeX), and iOS is going the other way, with macOS getting more iOS-like over time.

[fouc]

at some point we're going to have to converge our operating systems so there's no differentiation on desktop or mobile, and usable for both developers or phone users.