Microsoft Azure may be the new Windows

For the past two decades Microsoft has used the Windows platform to build its empire. Microsoft delivered a capable combination of operating system and applications. Microsoft's applications ran on Windows (and only Windows) and used proprietary formats. The combination gave Microsoft a near-stranglehold on the market.

The world is changing. Perhaps it is time for Microsoft to move on to something new. Here's why:

File formats The formats for Microsoft applications are open and documented. (Due to court decisions.) Proprietary formats worked to Microsoft's advantage. Now non-Microsoft applications can read and write files which can be exchanged with Microsoft applications.

Other operating systems for personal computers Mac OS and Linux are capable operating systems. Both have a significant number of applications. One can run a home or a small office with Windows, Mac OS, or Linux.

Competing applications The Microsoft Office suite is no longer the only game in town. Competing applications handle word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, e-mail, and even project management.

The Web Applications are moving from PC desktops to the browser, a trend that may have been started by Microsoft itself, with its web version of Outlook.

Phones and tablets Mobile devices offer a new vision of computing, one that entails less administration.

I think that Microsoft has looked at these changes and decided that Windows is not the way forward. I think that Windows, while still an important part of Microsoft's offerings, is no longer the center of its world.

Microsoft's re-branding of "Windows Azure" as "Microsoft Azure" is telling. The cloud computing platform supports more than Windows, and more than just Microsoft's Windows-centric languages.

Windows is an old operating system. It carries a lot of baggage, code to ensure compatibility with previous versions. While Linux and Mac OS are based on the older Unix, Windows has seen more changes as Microsoft added features and fixed defects. It may be that previous design decisions, the accumulated baggage of two decades, are limiting the ability of Windows to rise to new challenges.

My guess is that Microsoft may de-emphasize Windows and focus on subscriptions such as Office 365 and the web version of Visual Studio. Such a change would correspond to a move from the PC platform to a cloud platform. Instead of Windows, Microsoft will sell its Azure platform.

The knowledgeable reader will point out that Azure is built on Windows, so Windows is still part of the system. This is true -- for now. I expect Microsoft to replace Azure's "core" of Windows with an operating system better suited to servers and cloud processing, just as it replaced the early Windows "core" of MS-DOS. Windows was, in its early incarnations, a DOS application. Microsoft expanded it into a full operating system, one that surpassed MS-DOS.

I think Microsoft can do the same with Azure. Initially a system built on Windows, it can become larger than Windows, a better operating system for cloud computing, and more capable than Windows.

Windows made sense when people installed software on their personal computers. Today, people buy apps and the installation is automatic. The world is ready for a successor to Windows, and I think Azure can be that successor.

Windows fans see the glass half-empty

Microsoft has introduced Windows 8 and its companion Windows RT. The reaction from a number of Windows fans has been less than positive. Consider these articles:

From Infoworld: Forget about Windows 'Blue' -- stay focused on Windows 7

From InformationWeek: Tell Me Again: Why Rush Into Windows 8?

From Byte (a property of InformationWeek): Windows Blue's Got Me Down and Windows Blue/9: No Desktop? No Way!

A few observations:

Some reviews are fair criticisms, others are nostalgic almost-rants: Windows 8 is not a perfect product, nor is Windows RT, nor is the Surface tablet. Some reviews point out their weak areas: battery life, responsive to touch (or not), and consistency of user experience. Other reviews focus on the feature lost: the "Start" button and plug-ins for Internet Explorer (IE).

This opinion is not universal: These magazines are long-time fans of PC computing. In contrast, Dr. Dobbs is neutral about Windows 8 and PC Week has published several positive articles.

This negativity is new (for Windows): Previous releases of Windows have been met with approval from almost all Windows fans.

A reluctance to change: The disapproving users want Windows to remain the way it is. They want the "Start" button. They want to "boot to the desktop".

The Windows user base is not in agreement about the new Windows 8 offering. This is not a bad thing: A collection as large as the Windows user base will most likely contain diversity of opinions.

The negativity in the user base is, I believe, a new phenomenon in the Microsoft community. Previous changes in technology (Windows 95, Windows NT, the .NET platform, the C# programming language) were greeted with cheers. People immediately looked at the new capabilities in these technologies.

(OK, I will admit that Windows Vista was greeted with raspberries. But its problems were many and complaints were legitimate. Vista lacked drivers, demanded hardware, and offered few obvious improvements beyond a pretty desktop.)

The reluctance to change is, perhaps, the most significant of these observations. Microsoft supporters have long been willing to try new things, and often looked at new tech with envy. Microsoft may have built an empire, but the programmers were still in the Rebel Alliance -- scrappy, inventive, and risk-taking.

One can put forward a number of theories for this conservative shift in the fans. Most obvious is that the fans have built small kingdoms of their own, and the new tech threatens their standing in the empire.

A slightly uglier theory poses that Microsoft fans have aged, and the older versions of themselves are "too old for this sort of thing". (Yet Obi-wan Kenobi did a pretty good job, in spite of that claim.)

I have two pet theories:

Theory one: The Microsoft fans were surprised by the speed of the changes. They were not expecting the large change from desktop to mobile/cloud that is Windows RT and Azure. Being the emotional creatures that we humans are, they are reacting with fear and anger.

Theory two: The Microsoft fans are angry with the deprecation (or perceived deprecation) of Microsoft technologies such as Silverlight, IE plug-ins, direct access to hardware, and self-administration of systems. The loss of these (and other) technologies means that much hard-won knowledge is now worthless, and new knowledge must be gained.

I don't know which of these theories is correct. In a sense, it doesn't matter, because I have another theory.

The reason behind the negative thinking is not important. The negative thinking is the important thing. And I theorize that the people with the negative reviews of Windows 8, Windows RT, the Metro interface, and Azure will accomplish very little with those technologies. I theorize that the people asking for the "Start" button will stay with Windows 7 and its technologies.

I further predict that it will be the people who point at Metro and say "hey, this is cool!" will be the folks who deliver interesting apps and services for Windows 8.

Of the two groups, I prefer to work with the "hey this is cool!" people.