But one thing is knowable now: With Windows 8, Microsoft has sweated the details, embraced beauty and simplicity, and created something new and delightful. Get psyched. –David Pogue, NYT, Feb 2012
Nov 7, 2022·edited Nov 7, 2022Liked by Steven Sinofsky
One thing I've often wondered about Windows 8 is whether it violated what PJ Hough used to preach about "you can do two things great or three things mediocre" (or something like that). I get the sense in full hindsight that Windows 8 tried to be a) a new Ux paradigm for mobile b) a new app framework for safe/secure/modern c) a platform pivot to empower Office into the future. Clearly the latter didn't happen. Which again in hindsight is because little about Windows 8 helped Office with their highest priorities. Which makes me wonder how much energy spent on (c) caused loss of focus on (a) and (b)?
I'm reminded of a much smaller version of this when the OLE team came to Office with their plans for OLE3. Office's response to the OLE plans was "But you aren't solving any of our highest priority issues". To which OLE replied "But you're our most valuable customer".
There was clearly a disconnect in that relationship and hence OLE2 became "peak OLE" (using your phrasing).
It is interesting to think about what Office's priorities were. For sure there was a transition to the cloud as #1 but for most of the world it was "mobile-cloud" (or "social-mobile-cloud"). Office kind of lacked a mobile priority. Even today the priority for mobile is more as a "companion" than a primary way of working and they've ceded the mobile first worker to everyone else. I've always thought the real measure of success for Office 365 was not conversion from legacy EA but how many new customers don't even own a PC. Clearly the economics of selling higher priced versions of the desktop with companion cloud services are excellent as evidenced by the numbers, but that is a waypoint the way higher-priced mainframes or per-processor licensing were for IBM or Oracle.
Not entirely sure of the timing but there was also some oscillation of strategy between Google compete (multi-user editing specifically, more than cloud hosting) and Android/iPad complete and back to multi-user again on the Office side.
Which I think echos an earlier theme, big bold bets take courage to make and are so easy to abandon.
Yes. Though in my view that was a bit later when it became a bigger deal and wrapped up in trying to avoid the browser apps :). The team was in the midst of file format stuff during these discussions—-that was a big distraction. Always lots going on.
This was a very interesting chapter. As a lifelong Mac user (more or less), I have never been that comfortable with Windows. Everything about it always felt like I was doing things “backwards”. But I was very interested by the boldness of Windows Phone and Windows 8 and their wildly different approach compared to iOS and then-copycat Android. I even installed a Windows 8 beta in Parallels on my Mac. It was a great system, but clearly held back by the lack of Office and the need to fall back to the old Windows 7 desktop for some pretty basic things. I was never tempted to switch, as none of my favorite apps run on Windows, but I as very impressed, and then disappointed when it didn’t pan out.
Windows 8 and WebOS were two UIs that had such a huge impact on the broader market, but didn’t reap the rewards of that. While iOS’s SpringBoard was, until recently, kind of just a modern take to n Windows 3’s Program Manager, Windows Phone and Windows 8 were something truly new.
One thing I've often wondered about Windows 8 is whether it violated what PJ Hough used to preach about "you can do two things great or three things mediocre" (or something like that). I get the sense in full hindsight that Windows 8 tried to be a) a new Ux paradigm for mobile b) a new app framework for safe/secure/modern c) a platform pivot to empower Office into the future. Clearly the latter didn't happen. Which again in hindsight is because little about Windows 8 helped Office with their highest priorities. Which makes me wonder how much energy spent on (c) caused loss of focus on (a) and (b)?
I'm reminded of a much smaller version of this when the OLE team came to Office with their plans for OLE3. Office's response to the OLE plans was "But you aren't solving any of our highest priority issues". To which OLE replied "But you're our most valuable customer".
There was clearly a disconnect in that relationship and hence OLE2 became "peak OLE" (using your phrasing).
It is interesting to think about what Office's priorities were. For sure there was a transition to the cloud as #1 but for most of the world it was "mobile-cloud" (or "social-mobile-cloud"). Office kind of lacked a mobile priority. Even today the priority for mobile is more as a "companion" than a primary way of working and they've ceded the mobile first worker to everyone else. I've always thought the real measure of success for Office 365 was not conversion from legacy EA but how many new customers don't even own a PC. Clearly the economics of selling higher priced versions of the desktop with companion cloud services are excellent as evidenced by the numbers, but that is a waypoint the way higher-priced mainframes or per-processor licensing were for IBM or Oracle.
Not entirely sure of the timing but there was also some oscillation of strategy between Google compete (multi-user editing specifically, more than cloud hosting) and Android/iPad complete and back to multi-user again on the Office side.
Which I think echos an earlier theme, big bold bets take courage to make and are so easy to abandon.
Yes. Though in my view that was a bit later when it became a bigger deal and wrapped up in trying to avoid the browser apps :). The team was in the midst of file format stuff during these discussions—-that was a big distraction. Always lots going on.
This was a very interesting chapter. As a lifelong Mac user (more or less), I have never been that comfortable with Windows. Everything about it always felt like I was doing things “backwards”. But I was very interested by the boldness of Windows Phone and Windows 8 and their wildly different approach compared to iOS and then-copycat Android. I even installed a Windows 8 beta in Parallels on my Mac. It was a great system, but clearly held back by the lack of Office and the need to fall back to the old Windows 7 desktop for some pretty basic things. I was never tempted to switch, as none of my favorite apps run on Windows, but I as very impressed, and then disappointed when it didn’t pan out.
Windows 8 and WebOS were two UIs that had such a huge impact on the broader market, but didn’t reap the rewards of that. While iOS’s SpringBoard was, until recently, kind of just a modern take to n Windows 3’s Program Manager, Windows Phone and Windows 8 were something truly new.
Good stuff. With all the focus on Pogue, I look forward to coverage of his famous TileWorld observations, which came after all this, I recall
Correct. His final review was “Tile World”.