A World without Windows

Could Microsoft discontinue Windows? Is it possible that the future will see no Windows PCs?

Windows has been the key product for Microsoft. Or it was, in the 1990s and 2000s. Back then, Microsoft's was to provide everything, and have all Microsoft products connect. Windows was the platform. The Office suite was the set of common tools. Exchange provided directory and authentication services; Windows used it to log in users and Outlook used it to route e-mail and store organization calendars. SQL Server was the database, and also used by other tools such as Visual Studio and TFS.

That strategy worked in the days of networked computers. It doesn't work today, and Microsoft has changed its strategy. They moved away from the "Windows and everything for every user" strategy. They now offer cloud services and cloud-based applications. Microsoft is happy to sell virtual Windows servers from the cloud. They are also happy to sell virtual Linux servers.

Windows is an expensive effort. It requires a lot of design, development, testing, and support. Microsoft gets revenue from Windows licenses. Is the revenue from Windows worth the expense? Today, the answer is most likely "yes". But five years from now? Ten years from now? Will the revenue cover the expense?

I think of Windows as two similar but distinct products. The first is the Windows we know: an operating system that runs on PCs. This version of Windows not only hosts applications but also handles all of the hardware of the PC: memory, video, sound, USB ports, clocks and timers, keyboard, mouse, ... everything. Windows has a hardware abstraction layer with drivers for specific devices. The upper layers of Windows (memory management, task switching, processes, and application programs) doesn't worry much about the lower-levels. Upper-level functions use the hardware abstraction layer as an API to lower-level functions.

That set of lower-level functions is complex, and expensive to develop and maintain. (The upper-level functions are expensive, too.)

There is another Windows product, one that isn't used on PCs. Microsoft offers Windows in the cloud -- virtual servers and workstations. This Windows product runs the same applications as the "real" Windows that runs on PCs, but it has a very different lower level.

The lower-level functions for "real" Windows (the one on your PC) must contain code for thousands of devices, and perhaps more. There are many models of PCs, with different chip sets for audio, USB, video, and all of the other hardware bits of a computer. Microsoft does a pretty good job at making Windows work with current and old PCs. (I recently installed Windows 10 on an old laptop that initially had Windows Vista, and everything works except for the wi-fi connection.)

The story is different for the "virtual" Windows (the one that runs in the cloud). That version of Windows has the same upper-level functions, but the logic below the hardware abstract layer is just about non-existent. Data to and from devices doesn't go to the server; instead it gets routed to the client computer that is using the virtual computer. This second computer has the actual hardware -- the keyboard, the mouse, USB devices, audio devices, etc. Getting data to those devices is the responsibility of the client PC operating system.

If the virtual PC is running Windows and the client PC is running Windows, then Windows must talk to all of those devices. If not the virtual Windows PC, then the client Windows PC. With a Windows client, Windows must talk to the devices.

But is it necessary for the client to be Windows?

I think Microsoft is asking itself this very question.

Suppose that Microsoft were to drop the client part and focus on the virtual part of that configuration. Suppose Microsoft simply let the PC version of Windows die. What would happen?

For starters, Microsoft would lose the revenue from Windows licenses for "real" PCs. But it would also lose the expense of developing drivers and low-level functions. Keep in mind that there are lots of devices, and Microsoft has been very good at supporting them.

(Microsoft does a very good job of support, but they do not support every device that was ever made. Please don't complain to me because Microsoft doesn't support your ancient video card, or unusual disk drive, or odd-ball USB device.)

Why would Microsoft do that? Why would Microsoft walk away from all of that revenue? The answer is simple economics: Does the PC version of Windows pay for itself? Does the revenue from PC Windows cover the expense of hardware management? If it does, then there is an argument to keep providing Windows. If the revenue does not cover the expense... then the argument is to abandon that market.

It may be that Microsoft will keep support for real PCs, but a limited subset of hardware. (Perhaps only Microsoft's Surface tablets and laptops, or a limited subset of certified computers.) Such a world would be very different from today's land of PCs running Windows. Linux may step in and provide the client base for access to virtual PCs (be those virtual PCs Linux or Windows). Vendors such as Dell and Lenovo may develop their own operating systems, possibly based on Linux, and tuned to their hardware.

If Microsoft can successfully migrate a large percentage of application users (users of Office, Project, SQL Server, etc.) to their cloud-based virtual Windows desktops, then we might just see that new world.