Ideas for Windows

Where should Windows go? What improvements should Microsoft make?

I have some ideas.

First, Microsoft should drop the '10' designation of Windows. Yes, Windows 10 is different from Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 (and Windows 7, and Windows Vista, and...) but that's not important. What's important is how people talk about Windows, and how Microsoft wants people to talk about Windows.

People don't talk about "Windows 10"; they call it "Windows 1809" or "Windows 20H2". And those names are good enough to identify a version of Windows. The "10" is superfluous.

There is another benefit to dropping the '10'. It means that Windows doesn't get embroiled in marketing battles with Apple's macOS. Apple just updated macOS from version 10 to version 11. Is Apple now "ahead" in the operating system race because they have version 11? Is Microsoft behind because they have version 10? (Fans of the old movie "This is Spinal Tap" can make jokes about "our amplifiers go up to 11".)

By dropping the '10' and referring to release numbers, Microsoft avoids all of the comparisons. Or at least the meaningless comparisons of '10' and '11'.

Looking beyond version numbers, Microsoft is moving into a position which will let it reduce the number of configurations for Windows.

Today, Windows has multiple families: "Windows Server", "Windows Professional", and "Windows Home".  When Windows was sold in a box, these divisions made sense.

As Windows moves to a subscription service, the notion of different Windows versions makes less sense. The subscription model changes the idea of the purchase. Instead of "I'm buying this Windows product today and I will use it for a few years, getting free updates in that time" the idea becomes "I have subscribed to Windows, I pay a monthly fee, and this month I want this configuration of Windows". The difference is that one can change the product during the subscription (much like changing a Netflix account to allow more or fewer screens at the same time).

With a Windows subscription, one could start with Windows Home, then "dial up" the configuration to Windows Professional for a few months.

Maybe the designations of "Home" and "Professional" don't make sense anymore. Perhaps a subscription to Windows gives one access to a set of features (more granular that "Home" or "Professional"), and you can activate (or deactivate) new features as you want. Instead of choosing one of three options, one chooses from a large menu of services, enabling those that make sense.

I think we will see a number of changes as Microsoft moves from the "sale in a box" concept to the subscription concept of software.