Windows Weekly Episode 876 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word.
Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show

Mikah Sargent (00:00:00):
Coming up on windows weekly. I mic a Sergeant am subbing in for Leo Laport and we have a great panel today. Of course, Mary Jo Foley, but also Zach Bowden, the senior editor of windows central and managing editor at XTA rich woods. Yes, this is a jam packed show with two great guests. First, we talk about the next version or versions of windows. Microsoft has a whole new schedule put in place for how windows will roll out every three years. New major drops and then some small ones in between then the canceled surface duo and Zach Bowden's thoughts on the duo in general, Microsoft working with Netflix and some really important announcements from the inspire conference. Before we take some questions from the audience and round things out with Hicks, tips, apps, and drinks of the week, stay tuned

TWIT Intro (00:00:57):
Podcasts you love

Mary Jo Foley (00:00:59):
From people you trust.

TWIT Intro (00:01:01):
This is is tweet.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:08):
This is windows weekly episode 786 recorded Wednesday, July 20th, 2022 windows Ventura.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:18):
This episode of windows weekly is brought to you by secure works. Are you ready for inevitable cyber threats, secure works, detects ever changing threats and defends against them with a combination of security analytics and human intelligence to learn more, visit secure works.com and by click up the productivity platform, that'll save you one day a week on work guaranteed use code windows to get 15% off click ups, massive unlimited plan for a year. Meaning you can start reclaiming your time for under $5 a month. Sign up today@clickup.com. Hurry. This offer ends soon and by INFR scale, INFR scale delivers industry leading data protection through backup and disaster recovery, whatever your data or environment INFR scale provides continuity and resiliency for your business. Visit INFR scale.com/TWIT to get the free ebook five essential components of a ransomware protection plan and learn how to protect your business today. It is time for windows weekly. Yes, I mic a Sergeant am in today while Leo Laport is on a cruise and it is time to talk to some incredible windows Watchers up first. It is a one and only Mary Jo Foley. How you doing Mary Jo?

Mary Jo Foley (00:02:36):
I'm good. I'm not on the cruise. So I'm here in 101 degree, New York city today. It's excellent. Oh,

Mikah Sargent (00:02:43):
<Laugh> I am so sorry. I actually don't know what the temperature is here, but I know it's it's not cool. I can feel that for sure. It's not cool. <Laugh> yeah, you aren't on the cruise and I'm happy because that means that this show gets to be something different than it usually is. And I don't even know if we're gonna talk about Xbox today. It's gonna be, Ooh, I don't know. I don't know where we're going exactly. But I believe that you have some guests that you brought onto the show. So tell us about

Mary Jo Foley (00:03:09):
That. I do, I have two guests today and people in the windows world know we're a very tight community, us, Microsoft Watchers. So all of us know each other really well. And my idea for this show was, let me bring on some people who, if we were just sitting around in a pub, say rattle and home, any pub these would be the people I would wanna be chatting with. So first I've got my friend rich woods, who is the managing editor of XDA. He also not, everyone knows this. He's also the 2015 loom me up personality of the year. <Laugh> I, not everyone knows this. He knows rich knows everything about phone cameras. He knows everything about ships. Whenever I need a question answered about Intel roadmaps, AMD roadmaps, Qualcomm, I call rich and he knows a lot about baseball. All three of these things are something I know very little about. So he's a handy guy to have around that's guest. One guest two is our friend, Zach Bowden. He is a senior editor at windows central, but he's way more than just that. He's also a Microsoft prototype hunter. He's a dual screen enthusiast and he is the aficianado of rounded corners. We will make fun of him about all three of these things during today's show.

Zac Bowden (00:04:33):
Thanks for having me. <Laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (00:04:35):
<Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (00:04:38):
I mean, Mary Jo you're regularly I hear you talk about these two on the show when you're, you know, talking about new bits of news and oh yeah, I heard from, and you, you, you know, have some, some little insights. So I, I think it's a pretty awesome panel. You've got lined up here and I am looking forward to asking lots of questions as is my shtick. Okay. At the very least on this show. Awesome. So yeah. How, how, how are we kicking things off today? Mary Jo?

Mary Jo Foley (00:05:06):
Well, this is, this was a little bit of luck that we had last week. Our friend Zach broke a really big story. And when we had him lined up to come on the show today, we didn't know he was gonna drop this story last week. <Laugh> but Zach has some information from his sources. I actually should let him explain this about how the windows schedule may change in the coming months and years. Is

Zac Bowden (00:05:33):
That, yeah, so I guess we should just dive straight into it. So I heard a, a little while ago now at this point that Microsoft was changing up its development sort of cycle or schedule for windows going forward. And I started asking around about this because a couple weeks back, Microsoft started testing, build 2, 2, 6 22 in the inside of beta channel. And they announced that as a sort of enablement package, and I was immediately sort of wondering why they were doing enablement package testing on windows 11, so early on and into its life. Right. You know, the enablement package stuff, didn't start showing up on windows 10 until, you know, a few years in. So why were they doing that now on windows 11 started asking around and that sort of opened up a, I went down a rabbit hole that I was not expecting to go down and essentially found out from multiple sources at this point that Microsoft is moving away from its annual sort of major release of windows and is moving to a major release every three years with feature jobs in between.

Zac Bowden (00:06:28):
Now they call the feature jobs moments or get to all of that in a minute. But the big news here is they are going back to one release every three years, similar to how they did windows Vista to windows seven or windows seven to windows eight from windows 11 to windows 12, question mark, we dunno what that's gonna be called, but that appears to be what they're sort of going for now starting in 2024. So windows 11 came out in 20 21, 3 years later, 2024. That's when we can expect the next version of windows. And that's pretty big news, at least to me, because we are going back to this little traditional development cycle for major versions of the OS. And will that be a good thing? I, I wanna hear your guys' thoughts cuz I, you know, I know, I think what do you guys think

Rich Woods (00:07:08):
<Laugh> so, so I know it is big news, but were, were you guys expecting this? Cuz I feel like I was waiting for this to happen at some point. They've pretty much, I mean we've had windows as a service with windows 10 that was originally planned to be the, the last version of windows. And then something happened where PCs got popular. Again, they did, they needed something to make windows exciting. Again, they did windows 11 and I think when windows 11 happened, it was clear that windows 12 was gonna happen at some point. And then now we're starting to see the releasing features in many different ways. Insider testing is kind of a mess you're in different channels. You might get features. You might not. Now there's an enablement package where you can choose to get new features. And it's, it's so much of a mess that you kind of have to start to ask. Does it make sense to do yearly updates anymore? Windows 10 is still doing yearly updates with enablement packages and they don't even have features <laugh> they it's just like to introduce a new new support light cycle. Like they could just have the same update and say it ends in 20, 25. Like this stuff doesn't make sense to do anymore. So knowing that there would eventually be a windows 12, I think every three years made sense. And I, I, I was kind of waiting for this to, to happen eventually. Do you guys agree or

Mary Jo Foley (00:08:29):
You know, Mary Jo? No, not really. No because okay. Well, okay. So last year they made a huge deal out of having this one once a year update, right? Like right. And all the it, people were like, yes, that's what I wanted. I wanted them to only do one update a year and they had a whole elaborate explanation. They did it for windows 10, windows 11, and now it's like, oh wait, no, actually just forget that. Right. Like we're gonna, but

Rich Woods (00:08:53):
I think things have even changed since then though. Don't don't you?

Mary Jo Foley (00:08:55):
They have yeah, they have. Yeah, no, because in February I think it was February Panos. Remember that blog post, when they started talking about, by the way we can drop features anytime we want, remember that blog post and it was like, wait, okay. So we're gonna have one update a year, but you can actually drop features whenever you want. So what's the one update a year even mean, right.

Rich Woods (00:09:16):
<Laugh> right, right, right, exactly. That's what I'm saying, but cuz they, the first one was the windows sub subsystem for Android and the Amazon app store. They, they announced this with the windows 11 launch. It didn't launch with windows 11 and then it it's like, well, yeah I guess, I guess we'll have it later this year. Well, we're not gonna say when we're gonna have it actually, but maybe not the next feature. It's like what, what do you guys have been talking about? <Laugh> so yeah, so that arrived. At some point it comes to the store and they have web feature experience packs. I don't even know the names of all these feature experience packs <laugh> no one does, but there's so many ways of dropping new features that, that, what is that? That once a year feature update even there for anymore.

Mary Jo Foley (00:09:55):
I know. I agree. Okay, so let's, let's play devil's advocate there I, on the negative side, this takes away predictability. Right? So that's the one thing it loves predictability mm-hmm <affirmative> it's like suddenly it's like we, we knew you could drop features anytime, but now you're saying Zach's story. The moments thing, even that name is so stupid moments, <laugh>

Rich Woods (00:10:17):
Like,

Mikah Sargent (00:10:17):
Come on. It sounds like 

Rich Woods (00:10:19):
But that's on brand for Microsoft. <Laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (00:10:21):
It's like

Mikah Sargent (00:10:21):
Snapchat stories, but inside of Microsoft is a very strange name for it.

Mary Jo Foley (00:10:27):
No, it's such a PR name. Right? Because sometimes I feel like when Microsoft's doing something, they say we're they call it a moment. Like we're having a moment about, you know, AI or whatever. Okay. So anyways, forget this how weird the name is, but they might have these drops every four up to four times a year. Okay. So there will be, yeah. Zach, Zach sources say a new version, whatever that really means a new, like doesn't mean a whole new version where everything is different doesn't mean that just, that you're gonna have to reboot and you're not gonna use an enabling package. We don't really even know what that means. Right. And then you're gonna have all these other updates dropping Willie nilly. Like, is it gonna be every quarter maybe? Or is it gonna be like three of them like back to back? And then one at the end of the year, we don't know. Right. Like, so on the negative side, I say, this takes away predictability on the positive side, which is what I think this is stuff Panos and his team care a lot about it brings excitement back, right? Like, oh, we're gonna surprise you guys with new features. <Laugh>

Rich Woods (00:11:30):
I think also windows 12 brings excitement back. Just, just the idea of having a new version of windows. I mean, as, as writers who are writing content about this stuff, we see yeah. That there is a ton more interest when they have an actual new version of windows. Yeah, for sure. And it is not the same amount of interest for a feature update to windows and I'm sure they see that and it, they like it when they can get people

Zac Bowden (00:11:52):
Excited.

Mikah Sargent (00:11:54):
Yeah. How does Microsoft, so one, one of the things that, you know, I'm always thinking about in terms of different com. So an example is today Amazon is doing its AXA live event, which is an event for developers, but there's all these announcements of new ways the developers can make use of AXA and do a bunch of fun stuff with that. Does Microsoft have events where they where they announce specifically the new version of software? Is it typically the blog post idea where you go and you see the new features there? Because that schedule of once a year versus every three years that, that seems like a long time to wait between new versions of windows, but you know, I'm not in the windows camp regularly so I can understand how

Zac Bowden (00:12:43):
That's different. Well, that's what the moments are going to before. Right? The, the moments really only exist to, to sort of keep windows current. When we have major updates coming for other platforms, windows need to keep current somehow, especially if there's only one major version every three years. So these moments are sort of step in and keep windows up to date and fresh with new features up to four times a year, he has Mary mentioned that doesn't mean they will do it four times a year. They may only do it TWITce in one year or maybe once in one year. I think it will depend on what features they have lined up and ready to go. And it benefits Microsoft internally because you know, these feature teams who are working on features all throughout the year have often had to wait for the annual release in the fall.

Zac Bowden (00:13:21):
If your feature's done in January, that's kind of annoying, isn't it? Because you have to wait for the rest of the year with these moments, if your feature's done in January, we can say, right. When's the next moment? Oh, it's in February. Cool. We can line this feature up for February. And so these features get out sooner for these product teams as well. And then of course they can also start working and do major sort of investments to the platform for these major versions every three years, cuz they now have a longer runway to make meaningful improvements to the OS rather than, you know, in six months. Oh my God, we have another feature update. We've gotta do what do we put in it and have no time to really actually make anything proper out of that. So there are benefits to it. It will be interesting to see how it admins are allowed to control the moments aspects, because I think it, admins will be happy with the move to three years for major releases. And I'm not too sure how they're gonna feel about the moments possibly every few months, assuming it can control it. I think it'll be a bit better, but if they can't, that might be a problem <laugh> right. Would it

Mikah Sargent (00:14:15):
Right. Would it be accurate to, to draw a comparison really quick? Would it be accurate to draw comparison between Androids, Google play services updates and this moments thing, is that the idea that instead of time, everything to a release cycle, you can it's do it. Pixel pixel feature drop ah, yeah.

Zac Bowden (00:14:32):
Pixel feature drop. Exactly. That's how it was described to me essentially look at what Google does with the pixel every month or every couple of months, they will do a feature drop outside of major versions of the Android OS. And you know, they still get those every year. But there are individual features that show up for pixel users and the same can be said for windows in these moments every few months, there'll be a few new features. I doubt there'll be huge changes to the UX and, and things that you have to relearn. I think these will just sort of include enhancements to the existing products. So things that make whatever you've got better rather than changing things drastically, I could be wrong about that. Who knows what they're planning, but I would be crazy for them to sort of do a windows eight style change in a moment, right. <Laugh> no way would they change the UX that drastically right. But that's what they could save the major releases for if they wanted to build hype and a story around a major version of windows, if they were planning to do any significant UX work that changed things around, they could save that for the major versions every three years.

Mary Jo Foley (00:15:26):
Yeah.

Rich Woods (00:15:26):
I think this is gonna be really good. I think I, I, I think it may like, like Zach said, they they'll have a longer runway to put major major releases of windows together. Windows 11, we know it was kind of rushed. It was put together in less than a year <laugh> and, and, and now that we're seeing a feature update this year, that that's really just more of a complete version and, and features that were in windows 10 are coming back. So being able to plan that every three years, I think it's gonna be good for everyone.

Mary Jo Foley (00:16:00):
Well, the one thing we don't know is the support timeframe and how that's gonna change. Right. Right. So just because they release a new version of windows every three years, is that gonna mean they support versions of windows for three years cuz if it does, it will love that. Right. But what if it isn't that, what if it is, and you have to update to this group of moments in order to remain within support for the next year and a half or whatever, like you can see them doing that. Right. Like they're Microsoft wants people to be on the latest version all the time because they feel like it makes people happier when they have the new features. At least that's what they say. Right. So if, if you're the it person you're like, yeah, but how do I like make sure people are all on the same version and some may be on this version or that version. And then you have to figure in how long is it supported and like, how is that gonna work? And I, I just feel like it sounds fun from an announcement perspective and it makes it more exciting for us as the reporters, cuz we're gonna have more to write about, but like if you're the people trying to implement this across your company and especially if you're a big company, I think there are a lot of things that could go wrong.

Rich Woods (00:17:09):
Bets ends

Mary Jo Foley (00:17:09):
Up being <laugh>

Mikah Sargent (00:17:15):
Is this though than windows are Microsoft rather there go through all the names is this Microsoft's way of doing what you have been te wait, which was odd coming from you, Mary Jo. But I remember you talking, asking at the end of the year about how Microsoft was looking to be more for consumers at the time, and you asked, you know, what, in this past year showed that you were focusing on that is this one of those things, because as you said, it doesn't seem like it's very focused on the it folks and the folks who are needing to make sure that this that they can support it. But instead as a person who's not in that who just has my Elvis laptop that I like to get new features on from time to time as a seeker, as a seeker. Yes, I, this, this is exciting. I'm, I'm looking forward to all of these. And I think that the, you know, the, the Microsoft or the windows fans out there of which there are many we'll be excited about this. Is this a consumer facing change to the schedule more so than a, a, a company company change?

Mary Jo Foley (00:18:24):
I say yes, for sure. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> it is. And you know, when Panos took over windows client, I Panos cares about apple that's who Panos cares about right. <Laugh> so to be very blunt and he, he wants anything that Apple's doing. Like if Apple's updating their new OS to version 12 or version 13, he wants to be right there. Right. He, he thinks about things from a consumer perspective, for sure. You know, the older guard at Microsoft, that's not here anymore. Some of them were very much more attuned to the needs of it, pros and businesses because that's Microsoft spread and butter. And if you really care about that group of people, like what you're proposing here, it sounds like a nightmare to me. I don't know. <Laugh> I think I understand the excitement part and like, you know, cool. We get new features and look at this. This is really nice. But if you're, again, if you're somebody rolling things out through rings or trying to make it so that you don't have to retrain your employees on stuff like this probably sets off a lot of alarm bells for you.

Zac Bowden (00:19:25):
I, I think it, I think it will depend on the kind of features they plan to roll out through these moments. Right. Because, you know, yeah. They sort of tested this with the weather button, rolling out to windows 11 earlier this year, back in February, they announced that, Hey, we're gonna roll out weather button. There it is. It's on the task button now mm-hmm <affirmative>. And that wasn't really that wasn't part of the initial windows 11 launch. And that wasn't part of a, you know, version 22 H two, that was just right out in a, in a servicing style update for existing windows, 11 users. And that I don't think really maybe interrupted people's workflows or how they use the OS, if it's features sort of like that, then I think maybe it admins are gonna have less of a problem with this. And again, if they can control these and how they roll out, then maybe it won't be so bad.

Zac Bowden (00:20:05):
Sure. It will come down to if, you know, if they make a significant change to the start menu, if they, if they shift icons over, if they, if they add something to it, that could be a problem. But would they want to do that in a moment? Or would they save that for a, for the major release every three years? These are the questions we don't know and not, you know, I don't really think Microsoft knows cause yeah. You know, I guess it will depend how they're feeling and, and what feature sort of fits in what product

Mary Jo Foley (00:20:29):
And maybe if they ship with the moments features turned off by default mm-hmm <affirmative> right. By default, right? Yeah. That could calm people down too. Like, okay, if you wanna try out this weather widget thing, you have to turn it on consumer. Right?

Zac Bowden (00:20:45):
Yeah. And I guess we can assume that these will sort of show up through these enablement packages. Right. You know, they're already testing 2, 2, 6, 2, 2 with the beta channel. Right. And that's what enables tabs in file Explorer that this is an enablement package. So, you know, you will download 2 26, 21, which doesn't have tabs in file Explorer. And then if you want to echos upgrades to the enablement package, which enables the tabs, then that's how you would go about that. And I assume it, admins can, can control whether the user gets offered 2, 2, 6, 2, 2, or if they stay or, or aren't offered it and have to stay on 2, 2, 6, 2, 1, I assume maybe that's how it will be controlled. Mm-Hmm

Mary Jo Foley (00:21:18):
<Affirmative> that would be better in terms of it. Right. If that works <laugh> yeah,

Zac Bowden (00:21:24):
Because both of those builds are serviced the same. Right. If you look at when they announce the new base channel builds, right? The, the, the, the.xxx number is exactly the same. So they're serviced identically, just the 2, 2 62 build is what turns features on. And so I guess the, the support life cycle for both of those would be the same, who knows <laugh> but I, why would they make them different if they are basically the same bill? Just one turns things on, and one turns things off, right? Mm-Hmm

Mary Jo Foley (00:21:49):
<Affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah. Okay. Do you guys actually think this is gonna be called windows 12, the next version, and here's here's what I, who

Zac Bowden (00:21:57):
Knows, ask you

Mary Jo Foley (00:21:57):
This? <Laugh> I know. So, so many people, when they read Zach's story last week, I know the headline was windows 12 coming in 20, 24. I'm like, so we have no idea if this is gonna be called windows 12. Right. Right. I mean, yeah. You would guess it could be, and I've heard from people. It will be, but then if you, again, going back to it, if you're an it person, do you wanna say, okay, wait, I just got on windows 11 and here comes windows 12. Right. This I

Rich Woods (00:22:26):
Don't. I used to be windows Ventura.

Mary Jo Foley (00:22:28):
<Laugh> windows

Rich Woods (00:22:29):
Monterey,

Mary Jo Foley (00:22:32):
Hey, somebody else is doing that. Aren't they? Although maybe they'll take a cue from apple. I don't know. <Laugh>

Zac Bowden (00:22:38):
Yeah. You know, I think it's too early for even Microsoft to know what they're going to call it. Yeah. I think it would be a mistake for them to not market it as a new windows product whether that's windows 12 or something more abstract, like windows Aurora remains to be seen. But I think it would be a mistake for them to just call it windows eleven, twenty, twenty four edition, you know, because what is the point in waiting three years in that case? Just do them every year. You've been doing that for the last five years. Why would you have this stock gap suddenly if they're just gonna be more windows 11 updates. So I, I would like to think that this would be a air quote, windows 12. We dunno if they'll actually use the number 12. It could be something else. But I do think you, I am leaning more towards then marketing it as a new windows product rather than an update to the existing windows product.

Rich Woods (00:23:25):
I think windows 12 makes sense as well. I think yeah, like I said before, yeah. I think, I think they were leading towards this when they, when they did windows 11 a new version of windows and then support life cycles will have, you know, a support life cycle for windows 11 and then one for windows 12. Yeah. And then that'll just, yeah, they'll, they'll probably keep it as simple as possible, cuz Microsoft's really good at that. You know,

Zac Bowden (00:23:47):
<Laugh> and you know, I saw <laugh> I saw, I saw a few people sort of go, oh, this is just gonna be an excuse for them to increase the system requirements again. And you know, I had to look back at how windows versions did it in the past, not every new version of windows up the system requirements. I'm pretty sure they stayed the same between two and seven. And I think they would state the same between seven and eight as well. Windows 11 was the first version of windows in a long time to really up those system requirements. And I don't think they're gonna do that again for a number of years. So I wouldn't worry about the 20, 24 release being some, you know, if they require 11, 10 chips and ups, that would be a mistake. I think so I, I don't think that's gonna happen. Hm.

Mary Jo Foley (00:24:21):
Yeah. I, yeah, the 12, the 12 it's it's funny, Zach, Zach put new story. He heard the codename for the next major version is new valley and V I heard the same thing from somebody else. And when I heard the tip about new valley, I initially was expecting it was gonna be just another feature update next, right next, sorry. Next valley. Next valley. I, I was thinking that next valley code name originally, I was thinking that meant like windows 1123 H two, like I just thought it was gonna be like one of those kind of more minor updates, you know?

Zac Bowden (00:24:57):
Yeah. The reason why I didn't think that is because the, the version 23 H two that was planned was codename sun valley three, which makes sense. It's a windows 11 update sun valley, the initial windows 11 was sun valley one this year, we're getting 22 H two, which is sun valley two next year would be sun valley three. That makes sense. But with the shift to this new development cycle, I'd also heard that sun valley three was scraped and many of the features planned for that will now sort of ship in the, in a series of moments throughout 2023. So there's no major release of the windows quite next year. And then that leads them. That leads them time to sort of develop for the 2024 release, which may or may not be windows 12. And it being codenamed next valley, you know, I'm not entirely sure of next valley is the actual code name.

Zac Bowden (00:25:40):
I think there might be a different code name for it specifically. Next valley was just what I essentially like V next, like a lot of people refer things as V next, next valley is sort of that as well. Next valley sort of stood out to me because if this was just going to be another windows 11 update, why not code name it, sun valley for why would they go to the effort of saying next valley that implies beyond windows 11? Right? So I think that sort of adds fuel to the fire regarding it being a windows 12, you know, but I, again, like I said, it, I think it would be a mistake for them to not have this as a new windows product. Right. What would be the point? Otherwise

Mary Jo Foley (00:26:10):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah, I don't know. I'm I'm not liking change. I'm not a, I'm not fan of change and we've had so much change. You change

Rich Woods (00:26:20):
Averse. I like it. <Laugh> we've

Mary Jo Foley (00:26:21):
Had so many changes in the way windows is serviced and how often and the length of support. I'm just like, Ugh, they can't decide. And they just, the goal posts keep changing it. I'm like, I just figured this out now we're gonna change it again. Okay.

Rich Woods (00:26:35):
I I've

Zac Bowden (00:26:35):
Heard from one is sort of, sorry, go ahead. Rich. I

Rich Woods (00:26:38):
Heard, I heard from some people on TWITtter that they're hoping that this will be a new version of windows where they roll back the new system requirements of windows 11. And like, not just one person, like, no, this is gonna be the one where they take away the TPM requirements and everybody on windows 10, they can't go to windows 11 is gonna be able to go to windows 12 and think this is not what's what's happening. People like holding out hope that they're gonna roll bad. That's

Mary Jo Foley (00:27:03):
That's not as crazy as it sounds. I don't really no, because okay. Think about this, the, those requirements, like, we don't know what percentage of existing PCs can upgrade windows 11. We don't have any, I, I have never seen a number. Have you guys ever seen one? No, but there's probably quite a few that can't right. And so

Rich Woods (00:27:23):
Probably the majority, what do you,

Mary Jo Foley (00:27:24):
What do you do with these people when it, when 2025 rolls around and there's no more windows you tell 'em to buy new

Rich Woods (00:27:31):
Pcs, Mary other it's as simple as that. <Laugh> no, that's true. I mean, I mean, you gotta, you gotta think when, when windows 11 launched the, the, the requirements were eighth gen Intel PCs. Yeah. Snapdragon eight 50 you know, Zen two AMD, I think so. So the oldest PCs that that could be upgraded were, or I should say the, the newest PCs that couldn't be upgraded should were like 2018. So you're still giving them a good, a good seven years of life outta their PC. And I think, I think the expectation for Microsoft is that you should be upgrading after that or run outdated software.

Mary Jo Foley (00:28:14):
Yeah. You, yeah. All right.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:18):
Are we ready

Mary Jo Foley (00:28:18):
For a break yet? <Laugh> oh, have we talked about everything possible that we could say about this? I'm sure. We'll think of more things, but yeah. <Laugh> maybe, maybe that's good for that topic. <Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (00:28:32):
All right. Well, while you ponder on, if there's more to say, we'll take a quick break. So I can tell you all about secure works, who are bringing you this episode of windows weekly, secure works is a subsidiary of Dell. You have this question, what would happen if an intruder broke into your home and moved in without you knowing it, sneaking around eating your food, using your Netflix account, imagine an intruder, doing the same thing to your it infrastructure. How many passwords could they compromise? How many systems could they damage or degrade? How many pieces of personal or financial data could they steal? It's kind of harrowing threat actors often hide in plain sight in it systems for more than 200 days on average, before they are detected. What happens when stopping at the end point is stopping your ability to properly defend your infrastructure.

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Mikah Sargent (00:30:25):
But in most cases, companies have a shortage of security talent, and they need the help of secure works to help manage and monitor any potential threats to their environment. Secureworks offers a purpose built XDR solution designed to answer today's evolving security challenges, optimized by machine learning and deep detection capabilities, but refined through human intelligence and insights earned over decades of experience, a Gartner Forester and IDC leader in security operations, SecureWorks empowers organizations with the collaborative and innovative security solutions required to achieve strong security in an evolving digital world@secureworks.com. You can learn more about the ways today's threat environment is evolving and the risks it can present to your organization, including case studies reports from their counter threat unit and more visit secureworks.com SecureWorks be the threat, be the threat. Thanks so much to secure works for sponsoring this week's episode of windows weekly. All right. It's time. It's time to get back into things. Do we wanna say anymore about windows 12 or 11 or 11.5 or windows Vista? 2.0 or Ventura, or what you like to talk about the surface duo?

Mary Jo Foley (00:31:42):
I think the duo, but I, you know, I'm just putting in for the new name to be windows 11 X, since you're supposed to have windows to X it's like use the 11 X name. Why not?

Zac Bowden (00:31:52):
I'm pretty sure the X is now something Microsoft will never touch again when it comes to windows versions. <Laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (00:31:58):
Yeah.

Zac Bowden (00:32:01):
I'm I was gonna say no's next for that?

Mary Jo Foley (00:32:03):
You're just gonna say that. Okay. No, the next story is our opportunity to make fun of Zach. There's always.

Zac Bowden (00:32:10):
Oh, we love those. Yay. 

Mary Jo Foley (00:32:13):
No. So Zach, Zach is like a real sleuth when it comes to this stuff, he, he saw on eBay, somebody was selling a surface duo that didn't look exactly familiar. And so he tracked it down and I'm gonna let him tell you what he found, cuz it's kind of weird and crazy <laugh>

Zac Bowden (00:32:32):
<Laugh> so yeah, I, I found on eBay, unfortunately I didn't buy it, you know, not that I would it's stolen goods, Microsoft, if you listening, I would never have bought them. <Laugh> but <laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (00:32:43):
Never

Zac Bowden (00:32:44):
On E ay, I came across what a weird looking surface du oh two. And the title of the sort of listing was service du oh two dev unit. And I wasn't too short. This was, so I asked around, by the time I was able to get a sort of concrete answer as to what this was that the, the listing had sort of been deleted. I think it was sold to whoever bought it. But yeah, this so I had heard that this device was codenamed Cronos and was supposed to ship later this year as a lower cost version of the surface duo two. But it was canceled late last year. So this thing hasn't been planned for a long time at this point, but it was, it got to a point where it existed and I guess was in self hoster's hands or testing internally until they decided to cancel it.

Zac Bowden (00:33:27):
And it was supposed to be essentially a mid-range surface duo too. It had a, a plastic exterior compared to the sort of glass exterior that the surface door two has, it had one less camera on the back. It had a sort of upper mid tier Snapdragon seven series chip, I believe. And instead of the, it didn't have a glass bar. So the, the displays on the inside were flat rather than curved down the middle. And it was essentially, you know, everything that they could pair back, they did to sort of hit a lower price bracket. Now, unfortunately dunno what that, that price bracket was going to be. You know, a guess could be maybe 800 bucks. Maybe it's sub a thousand, I assume, is what they were trying to go for. Cause if you consider the price of the duo two, that was 1500 bucks at launch, I think it was very expensive.

Zac Bowden (00:34:10):
And that was, I think it's number one, criticism, right? The duo is just too expensive. So I guess they thought, Hey, why not try and make a, a cheaper version? And that's what this device was going to be. Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, it has been canceled and they're not going to ship it. The reason I was told it was canceled was cause they decided to just go all in on the duo three flagship, which as far as I'm aware is not coming until the end of next year. So we are, we are sort of going duo list for a year, unfortunately, but hopefully by the end of next year, they will have a, a product that is better than what we have currently, who knows what they're gonna do with the duo three. But yeah, this QAs thing is not happening as far as underwear.

Mary Jo Foley (00:34:48):
Okay. I, I, I think you, you know, I wanted to love the surface duo <laugh>

Zac Bowden (00:34:54):
I did too really know we

Mary Jo Foley (00:34:56):
All did. And when I, I know when I got the first unit, I get one of the first test units, like I think a hundred people got 'em and I put it my hand and I'm like, this is amazing. And then I tried to use it and I was like, and it's totally unusable. Like, you cannot use this. Like it's horrible. The original one software experience was terrible. There were legs where all kinds of problem camera was awful. Right. version two. I also finally did get a, a review unit of that and I tried it a couple times and I just gave up cuz I'm like, I don't think they fixed anything. I know you like it, Zach, but that's why we wanna make fun of you. Like why do you like that? Yeah. <Laugh> because

Zac Bowden (00:35:34):
It it's good. I promise it. I'm not lying. It is good. Now. Yes. This one did launch in a little bit of a buggy state as well, but today is an like, I can't fault it. It works as it's supposed to work at this point.

Rich Woods (00:35:46):
So Zach, when you say good <laugh> right, is it, I know

Zac Bowden (00:35:53):
Where you're going with this. Yeah.

Rich Woods (00:35:54):
Have you ever used a galaxy Z fold three

Zac Bowden (00:35:58):
Because I used the galaxy Z fold one. So I, I was there about the lot.

Rich Woods (00:36:03):
Yeah. Yeah. And cuz cuz obviously Microsoft has had a lot of partnerships with Samsung. They've had a lot of integrations with windows and such from galaxy phones that even the duo didn't get first. Right. yep.

Rich Woods (00:36:17):
Foldable beats, dual screen, in my opinion. And I feel like for a Microsoft fan, the Z fold three is, is the better option than, than a duo two. And I've also still just kind of had general problems with the duo two, like touchscreen issues. The camera really needs work, especially in low light. It it's way better than duo one. I'll give it that because dual oh one didn't have a rear camera. Right. Yeah. But, but yeah, I, I feel like the Z fold three. So I like to, to me foldables is where it's at rather than dual screen and a mid-ran duo to me doesn't really make sense because I feel like the product's not there yet. Like going all in on duo three makes a lot more sense to me because yeah, they need this thing to mature before they explore other tier.

Zac Bowden (00:37:03):
I fully agree. And I think Microsoft sort of thought that as well, that the product line at the time when they were developing Ks, just wasn't where it needed to be. And you know, I'm not saying it's there now, but from now until the end of next year, there's a lot more time for them to improve the software and indeed put together some hardware that is above and beyond what they've done here. You regarding the, the dual screen versus foldable screen debate. Yeah. It, it, it comes down to preference. Right? technologically I think a single screen foldable is better. But it comes down to the experience of the dual screen, like it on the duo. So with the galaxy fold one, which is the last little galaxy fold I really used, I never multitask on it. I just never did it.

Zac Bowden (00:37:43):
I had that big, you know, whatever it is, 7.6 inch screen. And I just never, never would you see me running to app side by side an app device? And I think that's because Samsung just did a poor job about implementing multitasking on top of Android for the galaxy fold. You know, it's a very manual process. You have to swipe out the side draw, then you have to drag an app to the one side you want to sort of open it on. And it's a process on the duo. It's, it's automatic. You tap an app on one screen and you tap an app on the other screen and they're just running side by side. It's not something you have to think about. If you're in one app and you tap on a link, it will just open on the other screen. The galaxy fold never does stuff like that. And I think that's, they did nail

Rich Woods (00:38:17):
That between.

Zac Bowden (00:38:19):
Yeah, they did. They, they made the multitasking seamless. Like you don't think about the fact that you're multitasking on the duo, but you're doing it all the time and on the Galax as far, that just wasn't the case. Now, do you value multitasking on your phone? That's, you know, that's the question you need to ask for, for whether or not this device makes sense. Right. And you know, for article people,

Mikah Sargent (00:38:37):
It doesn't have you written on, on there. Like have you, have you done those sorts of, have you done any work on that device or is it

Zac Bowden (00:38:46):
Fun? Not, not long articles, but I've certainly given it a go. I wouldn't prefer to write articles on this, but you can do it if you really wanted to. You know, I, I, no. Okay. I didn't use the laptop mode if that's what you're asking. <Laugh> <laugh> and the composed mode on this thing. Isn't great. And you know, I'll be totally honest with that, but being able to sort of span one app across both screens and type with, with two screens is actually really nice. And, but that because of the screens slightly wider. Yeah. The,

Mikah Sargent (00:39:10):
The hinge makes you more creative. Don't you remember the,

Mary Jo Foley (00:39:14):
Oh, I

Rich Woods (00:39:14):
Remember that Penn Fano said it was it's scientifically proven it

Mikah Sargent (00:39:17):
Actually adds creativity. Yeah. Yeah. <Laugh>

Rich Woods (00:39:20):
Yeah. But see the thing about I go ahead. Sorry,

Zac Bowden (00:39:24):
Go ahead. Go ahead.

Rich Woods (00:39:25):
All right. But the thing about spanning two different screens is that with certain apps it doesn't work, whereas with a, with a larger, full screen, like if, if I'm reading, I mean, they have a good Kindle app, but say if I'm reading comic books on it or something, there's just a split in the middle of the page. Or if you're, you're watching a movie on Netflix or something, there's just, it's just a, it's just a split. And, and if you're really looking for that multi-tasking experience, it can do it, but I'm not sure how popular of a use case that is compared to other things or the compromises that you make.

Zac Bowden (00:39:59):
Well, in that case, what you do is you just follow one of the screens found and it's just a number phone at that point, right? The scanning capabilities. Well, it's still a it's it's not a tiny screen. I, I haven't complained about this screen ever. It's perfectly sized. What I will say is, you know, the, the spanning capability, I, I think Microsoft advertised it wrong. It's a, it's a bonus. It's not a core part of the experience. Because most apps don't support it you're you are totally right about that. Some apps will accidentally support it sometimes. And obviously most of Microsoft's apps support it, but a lot of apps just don't and in that case, you just wouldn't span them. You'd just use it on one screen or you'd be using two apps side by side, or you'd fold one of the screens around and use it as a single screen to phone.

Zac Bowden (00:40:40):
And yeah, I totally get the criticism or yeah, but I bought a phone with eight inches of total screen real estate. I want to use all of it at once. And in that case, yeah, this device isn't going to be for you. It's for people who sort of prefer running to side by side, or if they're not using a single screen phone. Cause that's what being able to fold all the way around does for you. And then in the rest that can stance where it works. Being able to span an app gives you that both screens using in one app and it looks great and it feels great. But yeah, it's for the most part, not a phone where you would be spanning those two apps across both screens. Cause you, you just wouldn't wanna do that. I know some people say that they watch videos across both screens. I think they're insane. I've never done that. <Laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (00:41:20):
I, the thing that surprises me the most about the duo is that Microsoft is still backing it and still investing in it.

Zac Bowden (00:41:27):
Yeah. Yeah. I think Microsoft wants to have a successful phone business. And they're doing it right now with the duo two who's to say that they won't expand in the future to other form factors running Android that also fits in your pocket I'm of course, hinting out maybe a single screen phone or a galaxy fold type device. I, I would not be surprised if they have prototypes, things like that internally. I think Microsoft generally wants to have a, a, a successful, I dunno, how successful or, or have a phone business of some kind, because they are they're all in on Android. Right. You know, they, their recent, real, they created a new Microsoft Android sort of group internally, which houses, the duo OS it houses swift key, Microsoft launcher, all of their Android app efforts sort of under one organization. And I think what they want is to do what they did with, with windows and surface. But with Android, they wanna just have an Android device that showcases the best of all of their software on an open platform, which is Android and how better else to do that than with phones. <Laugh> cause that's what Android is

Mary Jo Foley (00:42:24):
Partner with Samsung partner with Samsung. Yeah.

Zac Bowden (00:42:27):
Samsung won't set the launcher default and have edges, the default browser. Right. That, that's the key thing there. I know that there are partnerships with Samsung and you have one drive doing backups for, I think Samsung photos and stuff. And there are some pre-installed apps through Microsoft. And obviously the integration with, with phone link. But you don't get that Microsoft launcher default sort of experience, you don't get edges default and all that stuff, which I think is what Microsoft really wants at the forefront of a, of a device. And Samsung will, will I, I don't think ever let Microsoft do that.

Mary Jo Foley (00:42:58):
Yeah.

Rich Woods (00:43:00):
So 20, 23 then for, you're saying October 20, 23, late 20, 23 is when 

Zac Bowden (00:43:06):
Late 20, 23. I know the exact timeframe. Yeah. And obviously that could, be's always back. We have no idea. Yeah. It's usually October you're right. But we, we, you know, as of right now, I think they're targeting late 20, 23. That could be push back if, you know, if the component shortage doesn't improve and they're not ready to sort of ship something yet, but as of right now, they're targeting the end of next year. And yeah. We'll, I guess we'll see what that turns out to be like.

Rich Woods (00:43:29):
That is a little disappointing, like, like if they're trying to compete in the phone space, like you said that they can't keep up a phone with flagship hardware, like their competitors are doing.

Zac Bowden (00:43:40):
Yeah, I, yeah. I've mean, yeah, I dunno. I, I,

Rich Woods (00:43:44):
I would gen one was a generation behind,

Zac Bowden (00:43:47):
Right? Yeah. Gen one. Yeah. Gen two is now behind. Cause it's almost a year old. I will say, you know, I, I wouldn't be surprised if the next duo is radically different. You know, they, they always say, you know, they, they try three to every, every third generation of a service product is usually the perfected one. Right. We had the, the pro free. I think that was the only one that actually really did that. But 

Rich Woods (00:44:06):
<Laugh> laptop three. Did

Zac Bowden (00:44:07):
It. I would, it didn't add laptop three,

Rich Woods (00:44:09):
Laptop three didn't look different, but, but the weight balance was totally different. They totally redesigned that

Zac Bowden (00:44:14):
Product on one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. Yeah, the, I, I would not be shocked if the do three is, is radically different. I would not even be surprised if they go single screen foldable for the, do three and just have the, the door screen and nature of it. Be through software.

Rich Woods (00:44:29):
Exactly. Let me ask you

Mary Jo Foley (00:44:29):
A question better. <Laugh>

Rich Woods (00:44:31):
Ask you questions. Not in the show notes. What about the studio three?

Zac Bowden (00:44:36):
Oh no. What about the yesterday? I've thought I heard a report

Rich Woods (00:44:40):
From my friend, Zach Boden that <laugh>, that, that this at this year's event, we may see a surface studio three. Yeah,

Zac Bowden (00:44:48):
It is possible. I will say that they've been,

Mary Jo Foley (00:44:50):
We should, what are they gonna announce this year in the fall for surface? We should like get you guys to speculate cuz Paul and I speculated, but we're not as close to it as you guys are. So

Zac Bowden (00:45:00):
Wait, what John Rich, what do you think's coming <laugh>

Rich Woods (00:45:03):
Well, I know surface pro X is surface pro nine are coming obviously surface pro X with an sq three, which is a rebranded Snapdragon H CX gen three Volera should be coming in October. They, they had said summer, but now I'm hearing that they're saving that for the surface launch event. You know, pro nines coming 12th, gen Intel. And then I guess surface laptop, which I had only heard from Zach, what makes perfect sense with 12th gen Intel and Verizon 6,000, which makes a lot of sense because that means like the last two years we've seen surface laptop in the spring, they've stayed a generation behind with Verizon. And so now I guess they're gonna catch up. And that makes a lot of sense because they're adding Thunderbolt now, which they did with surface pro eight and laptop studio, finally. So now if they use Verizon 6,000, they could pair that with USB four. So there doesn't have to be such a disparity between the Intel model and the AMD model, but Zach yeah.

Mary Jo Foley (00:46:05):
<Laugh>

Rich Woods (00:46:06):
But can you add to that? Cause Zach's the surface, the surface expert. I don't know why he said rich take that. <Laugh>

Zac Bowden (00:46:12):
I don't wanna tell what you thought first. So yeah, regarding, so

Rich Woods (00:46:15):
You can tell me why I'm wrong.

Zac Bowden (00:46:16):
<Laugh> no, I think honestly got most of that. Right. the studio three is interesting. Cause I heard that they wanted to ship a studio three in 20, 20, but then the pandemic happened and I think they decided not to do that. So they've been sitting on whatever the studio three is for a little while. I would hope they've updated it since then. But as last heard, I would be redesign planning. Yeah. I don't know about redesign, but I, I, I understand that they are kind of hoping to get it out later this year. So I assume it will be an out in October alongside all these other products. Whatever's new there. I don't know the last I heard it had an 11th gen chip in it, which I'm hoping they've updated since, because you know, we are on 12th gen now and coming up to 13th gen. So yeah, I would hope they've updated that, but yeah, regarding the design or any new features, I have no idea. And then the last thing I, I heard might show up this fall is surface earbuds too. I dunno. What's new of them. So don't ask me, but that's also apparently a contender for this fall.

Mary Jo Foley (00:47:10):
What about's new them, the surface monitor guys. What about the surface monitor? Where is that thing? Is it ever gonna show up?

Rich Woods (00:47:18):
They had confirmed that for right.

Mary Jo Foley (00:47:21):
Say it again

Rich Woods (00:47:24):
In

Mary Jo Foley (00:47:24):
The surface monitor. Oh, I, yeah, they were supposed to use surface technology to build a standalone monitor with no CPU unit because a lot of people wanted the surface screen. But they didn't necessarily want to have another computer and they actually said they were going to do it. Right. What, what year was that? 2019 maybe

Rich Woods (00:47:43):
For studio?

Mary Jo Foley (00:47:46):
No I don't. Did they confirm that for studio studio

Zac Bowden (00:47:48):
For hub? That was, that was the surface hub to display, right? That's that was the display

Rich Woods (00:47:53):
Cause they had the modular compute unit.

Mary Jo Foley (00:47:55):
Yeah.

Zac Bowden (00:47:56):
Yeah. That's great. So essentially what they were gonna do is take out that compute unit and just show you the screen and assume. Yeah. And they

Rich Woods (00:48:01):
Were also supposed to have multiple versions,

Mary Jo Foley (00:48:04):
Right?

Zac Bowden (00:48:04):
Yeah, exactly. They were supposed to be the two X, which also never came the two X. You know, if you go back and watch that initial surface up to sort of unveiling video, that's all fake. All of everything they announced in that unveiling video. Never Shipp. Literally none of it

Rich Woods (00:48:16):
<Laugh> yeah.

Mary Jo Foley (00:48:18):
Now I should tell you guys a funny story, cuz I was in the room with Zach when this happened. So they let us go on, on a NDA tour. Right. And I can talk about it now cause the NDAs over. But like they were letting us see what was gonna be happening was the surface hub two in the two X. Right. So they had a mock up unit and Zach is in there, like in the group I'm in behind the unit trying to like see if the thing will come off the unit and stuff. And they're like, what are you, dude? What are you doing? And he's like, can I, can I just look at this? And they're like, no, <laugh> oh my God. That's amazing. I wish I was, there

Rich Woods (00:48:54):
Was

Zac Bowden (00:48:54):
Hands on. I had hands on. That's all. I was

Mary Jo Foley (00:48:57):
Hands on. You had hands on that.

Rich Woods (00:49:01):
When someone brought,

Mary Jo Foley (00:49:05):
See the operating system version on it too, like somehow bring it up. And they, yeah,

Zac Bowden (00:49:10):
Cause it was a windows core thing and they weren't talking about it yet. And I did ask them very, I was like, is this windows core OS? And they're like, we're not talking about that. I'm like, but it's right in front of me.

Rich Woods (00:49:17):
We, why, why not? <Laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (00:49:19):
I could, I

Rich Woods (00:49:20):
Remember

Mary Jo Foley (00:49:20):
Someone <laugh>

Rich Woods (00:49:22):
Someone at that briefing had brought a prototype surface that no one on this call would no, no one on this podcast would, would purchase because it's still on property, but someone may have brought a surface mini to that briefing.

Mary Jo Foley (00:49:37):
Oh, it wasn't me.

Zac Bowden (00:49:38):
I

Rich Woods (00:49:38):
Wonder who you talking. No, definitely. Wasn't Zach is what we're saying. <Laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (00:49:42):
Oh,

Zac Bowden (00:49:43):
Microsoft, I don't have it anymore. So please don't call me. Thank you. <Laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (00:49:49):
See what we do in the name of journalism people. This is our job. Yes. Gotta do what you gotta do. You do.

Zac Bowden (00:49:58):
So I guess one more thing regarding, yeah, one more thing regarding the, the fall event, I guess, is the other thing that I heard might be happening. And I dunno if this is for a fact yet is they may merge the pro X of the pro nine, I guess. I dunno what they're gonna call it under one brand and just have it surface pro nine or se is pro 10, who knows what they'll call it. But instead of having a, a separate prox model for the arm variant, it will just have it under the normal one. And then when you configure it in the store, it'll be through Intel or you choose the S Q three, I guess, whatever they call it. I dunno if that's actually going to happen, but that's something I heard maybe on the cards. And that would be really interesting if they do that, because it would be a big moment for windows, an arm where Microsoft is essentially going, this is no longer special. This is just <laugh> this, this is no longer windows Anami is no longer special. This is just part of the surface pro line. And you can configure it with the arm or figure of Intel.

Rich Woods (00:50:50):
I, I don't think that's happening this year though. I think it might

Zac Bowden (00:50:54):
Be next year. It might not be this year, but I just heard, I heard it was something they were thinking about.

Rich Woods (00:50:57):
Yeah. Also, I, I think I, I have, I have a theory on, on why though, because, because I do think that Panos care, like, cause I mentioned rising 6,000 in Intel, 12 gen and USB four and Thunderbolt and the, the new surface pro X I believe will still be USB 3.2 while the pro nine is still is gonna have Thunderbolt. And I think, I do think they care about that kind of disparity between the product and trying to say this thing is the same, but not.

Zac Bowden (00:51:24):
Yeah, well, I guess it's probably fair to say, then it's a goal for them to merge them cuz they, they would like to, I think

Rich Woods (00:51:28):
It's happening

Zac Bowden (00:51:28):
Next year is just an addition rather than, rather than a special thing that has to be treated differently because it's, it's worse or different in, in many different ways. And you know, we've seen lots of focus on windows in arm recently as well. You know, build was a big, a big event for windows and arm. They were now, you know, the whole, the developer tool chain is now our native project Volero which sort know where that's full visual studio. Exactly. And then Volera, which is a sort of Mac mini, but for windows running arm stuff, you know, all of that sort of appeared out nowhere and it was, was a sudden push forward for windows and arm. And I think this is in preparation of course, for the Nuvia stuff, which is supposed to be launching towards the end of next year. Right. And I guess we won't see that in, in a surface product until 2024 or hopefully you'd see it at the end of next year, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Mary Jo Foley (00:52:13):
All right, let's get, that's a great segue to get rich, to speculate on the Qualcom text summit. It's Qualcom tech summit coming in Hawaii in November. I bet you're going in person. Are you?

Rich Woods (00:52:23):
I am, I am going in person. Of course, of course. 

Rich Woods (00:52:27):
<Laugh> so, so I can speculate of what, what, what we'll see at snap drag and summit this year. I, I think we, we could see as many as four new windows on arm chip sets because right now we have the seven C eight C and eight CX. That's that's the existing lineup from Qualcomm. Seven C is very, is very popular at the low end. It's in some budget, windows, laptops, and it's also in a bunch of Chromebooks. So that is a high priority for Qualcomm. We might see H CX gen four HC, hasn't been refreshed since the beginning. It's been very few products, but I understand that it's not done. Like they're not killing it so that that's gonna be refreshed at some point, whether that's this year or not. And then H CX gen four would be a successor to, you know, gen three mm-hmm <affirmative> and then we might see Nuvia because, because the Nuvia chip like obviously for, for those who don't know, qual Qualcomm bought this company called Nuvia and it's supposed to help them build their own custom arm chip sort of like what apple is doing.

Rich Woods (00:53:33):
And right now they're using arm designs. And what they'll be able to do is just use the arm instruction set. So rather than having to wait for arm to put out new designs and build new processors based on those, they would have the full stack of processor development like Intel and apple do already. So that's been sampling to OEMs starting second half of this year. So second half just started should be sampling to OEM soon. They could announce that chip at Snapdragon summit. I don't know what it would be called. I don't think it's gonna be eight CX,

Zac Bowden (00:54:12):
Maybe nine CX

Rich Woods (00:54:13):
<Laugh>. Yeah. So Qualcom has been a really big 12, 12. Yeah. Qualcom has made a really big deal about saying that eight is their top of the line product eight means premium. That's why they had the 8 88 and now is just eight gen one for mobile. For PC it's eight C C means compute and then eight CX X means extreme. But from what I, I believe that a CX gen four and the Nuvia chip will exist in parallel to each other. And it's not like, it's not like the Nuvia chip is just going to be the next eight CX. I think, I think it's gonna be a new, a new amount of chips

Zac Bowden (00:54:49):
From them. Is, is that because the, the, the Nuvia chips are predicted to be quite expensive? Probably more so than the gen four chips?

Rich Woods (00:54:57):
No, I think it's just another tier. I think like like they've always said that H CX was an I five competitor. And I think in the beginning it was like a seventh gen I five that they were comparing it to and now they probably compare it to like an 11th gen or something. So this would be more along the lines of like, like an I seven or an I nine competitor. And hopefully like, I, I don't know if they're aiming for the MacBook pro comp like, like an M one pro or an M one max just yet, but I, I know that's definitely where they want to go at some point and this, the new via chip is, is supposed to take them there.

Zac Bowden (00:55:37):
Do we think that assuming that these new good chips can match apple, do we think Microsoft will start putting them in more surfaces? Cause right now it is literally only the pro X that has an arm chip every other surface, as far as I'm aware, other than the duo, every other surface PC is Intel AMD. Could we see Microsoft put a, a Nuvia chip in the surface laptop or a surface go or maybe not Nuvia chip in the surface go, but would you think maybe arm will expand throughout the surface line more as we sort of get better and better chips that can compete with what apple is doing in on the M one or M two M three side of things.

Rich Woods (00:56:14):
It totally could happen. A, any of this stuff could happen eventually, right? Because cuz I, I look at, I, anytime I look at the, the market, when it comes to arm, arm is winning and Apple's doing great with their, with their hardware. And it's not just, it's not just the performance because in a lot of use cases, Intel totally matches if not exceeds the performance that Apple's offering. But the fact that they could put something like an M one ultra in a product that's, you know, like eight inches square and then like five inches tall or something that's crazy. Where on windows with an Intel chip, we would need a, you know, like 125 wat CPU and a, and a giant graphics card to, to do something like that. Intel plans on winning being, being in the lead in performance for what, by 2025 or at least that's what they're promising right now. So if they can do that, that's, that's kind of the question, but, but if they can't, if they can't somehow catch up to, to what's being done on the arm side, absolutely. This stuff is gonna show up in more products.

Zac Bowden (00:57:19):
Yeah. You know, I think we have to thank apple for, for making really great change legitimizing that everybody wants to beat because every, all of these companies are now striving to beat it. And as a result, we're gonna get better windows pieces as a result. So thanks apple

Rich Woods (00:57:32):
<Laugh> by the way. Yeah. By the way Qualcomm was the, was the first to thank apple for, for this, that yeah. You know, when they, when they announced their own Silicon for max Qualcomm came right out there and like this, we think this is great because it's gonna push more developers to develop for arm and it, and it legitimizes, you know, arm PCs. And it's great for everyone.

Mary Jo Foley (00:57:52):
Yeah. Well I love the competition. Yeah. Well rich is the one for people who remember this from a, I guess a year ago that he reported that Qualcomm and Microsoft had an exclusive deal. Yes. And that this may have something to do with the fact that Microsoft still won't officially support windows on apple, Silicon. Right. that deal's supposed to be ending. Right. Unless there's been an extension to it. And what do you know, rich know anything. So,

Rich Woods (00:58:21):
So here's the thing. I, I, I, I don't, I don't have an update on, on when that deal is, is ending. But at the time

Mary Jo Foley (00:58:28):
I, well, you're going to Hawaii for a reason, right? Like, so this is your well, I said,

Rich Woods (00:58:33):
Yeah, but that's the thing I'm not Qualcomm's not gonna, the thing is Microsoft and Qualcomm officially won't acknowledge that this, that this deal exists. No, they won't. Right. but there, there are, there are now other companies like media tech that, that have said that they will make a windows on arm chip once they're allowed to. So I would keep my eye more on media tech summit, which is the week before Qualcomms event in November, that's gonna be held in California and I'll be there as well.

Mary Jo Foley (00:59:06):
<Laugh> of course you will. Mr. Chips, we he'll be there.

Zac Bowden (00:59:12):
Do we know why this exclusivity deal even exists? Like where is the benefit for the ecosystem? Because unless, you know, does media tech have chips that would benefit windows PC or is it really only Qualcomm? And are we not missing out or with this exclusivity?

Rich Woods (00:59:26):
No, we're, we're not, we're, we're not missing out right now. So like I said, the way that Qualcomm develops their chips, it's just arm, arm announces an architecture that they, they, they announce, you know, the chips that Qualcomm is gonna use. Like they show this stuff off a year ahead of time. And then Qualcomm announces the actual chip that uses the cores that, that arm announced. So, so media tech could just make the same chip essentially. The, the, the reason that the exclusivity deal is in place. And I mean, it's pretty straightforward because, because there, there was nothing to gain for Qualcomm in, in, in supporting PCs to begin with back in 2016 when they announced this. And when they said, all right, we're gonna work on this together. They said, what do we get? And they said, all right. So for X amount of years, you're gonna be the only one that makes, makes arm chips for, for windows. I, I, I think the first we'll hear about it ending will, will be from media tech. Microsoft will probably never announced that there was a, that there actually was a deal, but then, but I, I would expect that, that once that happens, you know, we'll see, we'll see windows on arm, open up to Mac books, and then hopefully apple would support bootcamp, which would be awesome. But like, once you realize there's an exclusivity deal, all the O all the limitations around windows on arm suddenly makes sense.

Mary Jo Foley (01:00:45):
Hmm. There didn't Microsoft say it build that sometime this summer, they would have more to say about licensing windows on apple, Silicon. I think they actually said that publicly. Right?

Rich Woods (01:00:58):
Did they?

Mary Jo Foley (01:00:59):
Yeah. I missed that. Somebody I forget who sent us a link, it might have been Terri, our friend Tara hone, and who found it, but somebody said that at build like this summer, we're gonna have more to say, okay, so we're running outta summer. Let's see when you were gonna say it. <Laugh>.

Zac Bowden (01:01:15):
I mean, so, so what is the other than the fact that it's not allowed by Microsoft? Are there any technical invitations for running windows and arm on a Mac right now? So there's no boot camp. So I guess you running it through VMware, I guess is how people

Mary Jo Foley (01:01:28):
D right. There's no ice parallels. Right? There's no ice parallels the thing,

Zac Bowden (01:01:31):
Right? Yeah. So, so what are people using to install on parallels?

Rich Woods (01:01:36):
Well, well, they have, they have a, a VHD X file that you can use to make a VM.

Zac Bowden (01:01:42):
Oh, right.

Rich Woods (01:01:43):
Yeah.

Zac Bowden (01:01:44):
Okay. And then, I guess it's just not allowed on a Mac, but it's fine. On, on legitimate windows and <laugh>,

Mary Jo Foley (01:01:50):
Yeah. It's not supported. That's the key, right? Like, so right. People can do it, but if you're a business and if anything goes wrong, you're outta luck. Like Microsoft will just say, yeah. When we didn't say you could do that. Yeah.

Rich Woods (01:02:01):
So, and even, even those VHD X files were originally made when they were releasing HyperV for windows on arm PCs. So they're supposed to be run on Qualcom PCs too. So I don't know, that's it, there there's nothing technically keeping windows on arm from running on. I, I think some people have gotten in the early days of M one people got windows on armed to run natively on, on some MacBooks. Yeah.

Mary Jo Foley (01:02:27):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Yep. All right. Well, have fun in Hawaii and let us know.

Rich Woods (01:02:33):
<Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (01:02:36):
Shall we take another quick break?

Mary Jo Foley (01:02:38):
Sure.

Mikah Sargent (01:02:39):
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Mary Jo Foley (01:04:28):
Yeah. So I'm excited. We get to dig in a little more about the Microsoft Netflix partnership that was announced. It was announced during windows weekly last week, and we didn't really have a chance to look into it that deeply at that point. But I'm dying to hear what, what Zach and rich think about where this could go in the future. So first, let me give you a quick outline of what it's about. So Netflix has been known to be developing a, an ad supported, less expensive streaming service. They've publicly said that they planned to do that. They announced last week that they've chosen Microsoft to be their exclusive ad support ad partner for this partnership. So that means Bing and MSN and all those things we lament on the show regularly will be part of this subscription. <Laugh>. Microsoft acquired a company at the end of 2021 from at and T called Xander X, a N D R.

Mary Jo Foley (01:05:27):
And that gives them a lot of play around connected TV and the whole tech platform from premium advertising for TV. And supposedly this is going to be a big piece of what they do with Netflix. Okay. So we knew that, right? Like, like around last Thursday, then there was an analyst, I forget, I forget who this was, but an a security analyst who came out and said, well, you know, what's really going on here. This is just Microsoft setting itself up to buy Netflix. And Netflix is out, is gonna out be out there, shopping itself around, and Microsoft's just sitting there waiting. And it's a great fit because Microsoft's all into subscription services and yeah, why not buy Netflix? Right. Makes sense. When I heard this, I'm like, make sense, this makes no sense. Oh my, how, what, like Microsoft buying Netflix. And then I thought to myself, oh, wait, this is the company that almost bought TikTok and way back when they almost bought Yahoo. Right. So something doesn't have to make sense for Microsoft to do it. It can still happen, even if it makes no sense. So what do you guys think? In

Rich Woods (01:06:32):
Fact, it's even more likely to happen if it doesn't make sense,

Mary Jo Foley (01:06:35):
<Laugh> it kind of is. Right. So what do you guys think is there any way this would make sense? You know, I think J over on windows central made a case, well, it fits in with what they're doing with gaming. Right. And I

Rich Woods (01:06:47):
Was gonna say game streaming tech, I think is the only right. Because cuz Netflix is really good at streaming at scale, right? Yeah. So, so maybe if they have some kind of streaming tech that could help with game streaming. Cause I mean, it's not about entertainment stream, like movies and TV. I mean, movies and TV is clearly not a priority for Microsoft in any no meaningful way. Like there, there, there have been leaks and rumors of an Xbox dongle and stuff, but even that's about gaming. But the movies and TV, like that's not even cross platform. So it's definitely not about that. <Laugh> but yeah, all I could see is, is game streaming tech. If they have it, Zach, what do you, what, what do you think? Does that make sense?

Zac Bowden (01:07:30):
I'm not, yeah. I, I dunno, but isn't Netflix like struggling a little bit right now. I I've seen headlines where they're losing subscribers and I dunno if they're making money still or what the situation, but they're not in a great place where they versus, you know, a year or two ago, would it make sense for Microsoft to buy a company that's seemingly struggling, keep in mind, this is an industry, a market that is very competitive. You know, we've got Amazon, we've got Hulu, we've got apple, lows of big companies are here, you know, doing these streaming services. And not only do they just have to stream content, they have to make their own original content as well. Is Microsoft willing to get into that game where they have to now start making TV shows and movies like apple does, you know, mm-hmm, <affirmative> some of apple, I, I have apple TV and apple makes some great shows and can Microsoft compete in that market?

Zac Bowden (01:08:19):
Do they even want to compete in that market? Right? Is, is another question entirely. Cause this is a very consumer focused market. And as we all know, Microsoft tries not to dabble in consumer markets as much as it can or in a lot of areas, at least other than Xbox. So yeah, the only angle I would say makes sense is for Xbox, but does Xbox wanna dive back into to movies and TV? Cuz if you remember, they tried that with the Xbox one and it failed spectacularly gamers rejected it, you know, I don't think any TV show other than halo got off the ground and that took almost a decade <laugh> so I, I, I just don't think Microsoft wants to get into the, the home entertainment sort of TV slash movies market. Cause it was very competitive.

Mary Jo Foley (01:09:00):
Yeah.

Rich Woods (01:09:00):
Do you remember when Xbox was gonna be the, the, the brand for all things entertainment? Yeah. When we had Xbox video and Xbox music and obviously all those things are gone now. I mean they, they could, if they really wanted to get into making TV shows, like there's, nothing's like there's nothing stopping them that like they, they do it with games, but I don't think there's any world where, where it makes sense to do.

Zac Bowden (01:09:24):
Yeah. I don't think they they'll ever use the Xbox brand for that again, because I think Xbox suffered significantly when they tried to make Xbox an all encompassing thing. Oh yeah. And their core audience, that being gamers just simply rejected it, which is why the Xbox wanted so poorly and is why Microsoft to this day are still sort of fighting, you know, Sony still recovering PlayStation and yeah, they're still recovering because of that focus that, that they lost focus. You know, gaming was just a part of a bigger vision and it all fell apart for them. So I, I would be shocked if Xbox went let's do movies and TV again. Cause the last time they tried that it didn't go well.

Mary Jo Foley (01:09:58):
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. I, I saw people saying, yeah, it's just, it's just a short hop from like having studios that create games to having studios that create TV shows. I'm like, no, I don't think that's a short hop. I don't know cuz I'm not in that field, but it seems pretty different to me, like a different skill set, a different group of people who would be undertaking that and sure they could farm that out. Right. They could just say, okay, we we'll have our own exclusive content, but we'll hire you know, TV studios to do it and we'll work with them as partners. They could do that. But I don't know. I, I really know. I know they wanna look more and more consumer friendly and have products and services that attract consumers and not just businesses, but this to me just feels like, oh, that could be such a big money pit if they decide to do this.

Zac Bowden (01:10:47):
Yeah. Especially since Netflix is apparently not doing too well. Like what, what can Microsoft bring to the table to write the ship and bring them back on track? Can they bring anything? I don't think so. You know, maybe somebody on the Xbox team might have an idea or two, but I don't think Microsoft's the company to buy Netflix if they need to be bought <laugh>.

Mary Jo Foley (01:11:06):
Yeah.

Rich Woods (01:11:07):
No, I think this is just about ed. I think that's it. Me too.

Zac Bowden (01:11:10):
Mm, yep. Yeah. And like, right. What would Microsoft gain buying them? Are they still gonna make money through this partnership? I assume they will. Of those. Why would they agree to the partnership? So they don't get the baggage and they still get to make money. And I think that's probably the best of Microsoft.

Mary Jo Foley (01:11:27):
Yep. Agree. All right. We did. We took care of that analyst who said that she was crazy.

Zac Bowden (01:11:33):
<Laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (01:11:37):
Our work is done here. <Laugh> yeah. Yeah. So we, we didn't talk yet about the big thing that happened this week, which is Microsoft's annual partner show in SP there

Zac Bowden (01:11:49):
Was a Microsoft show.

Mary Jo Foley (01:11:51):
There was, it was virtual

Zac Bowden (01:11:53):
<Laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (01:11:54):
It was virtual sadly. So yeah.

Zac Bowden (01:11:56):
Were there any announcements <laugh> were there, there were,

Mary Jo Foley (01:12:00):
There were a few, a few that you guys maybe even wrote about or heard about at least. 

Mary Jo Foley (01:12:09):
So, you know, what's funny, they, they still haven't really talked a whole lot about what they're doing with fluid and you know, how they've, they're working on an app to compete with notion called fluid. They showed this like over a year ago and they haven't really said anything since, but what they are doing is talking about how some of the existing office apps inside teams are using fluid framework technology to finally actually do realtime collaboration. So they announced this thing called Excel live at inspire this week. And Excel live is gonna be super exciting to people who care about Excel. You, we know you are among our listeners on windows, weekends. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> we hear from you <laugh> these are Excel live is gonna let people who are working together in teams work simultaneously on Excel notebooks. So right now like Microsoft has realtime authoring collaboration, sort of in these office apps as Paul.

Mary Jo Foley (01:13:05):
And I know from one note, it doesn't always work the best. That's why we move to notion. But Excel live is going to let people like say you have a teams chat and there's a bunch of people talking about an Excel spreadsheet or an Excel Excel notebook. They can all work on it together at the same time. So people who are into Excel are like, this is gonna be amazing. This was the missing piece of Excel. And I think this is gonna be astounding. So yeah, that's one of the announcements that was a pretty good one. Most confusing announcement award goes to Viva and gage. So Viva is Microsoft's employee experience platform. You know, they have Viva topics, Viva learn Viva insights or all these modules. And it's basically been a platform to help you onboard new employees. As in, as a company, like when someone joins your company, either virtually or in person, you can kind of set them up on Viva and say, here's all the things you need to learn about our company and communications coming to you from corporate, you have Viva goals, you have all these modules that are meant to help you succeed as an employee.

Zac Bowden (01:14:08):
I still hold that Viva is really cool.

Mikah Sargent (01:14:10):
I, I think that was a

Mary Jo Foley (01:14:12):
Liked it. I remember you really were into Viva. Yeah. Yeah. So this week they announced a thing called Viva engage, which is based on Yammer which is a social media platform that Microsoft owns. So if you go back and you look at the headlines that came out about this this week, a lot of people had never seen Yamer before. And when they saw Veva engaged, they saw Facebook like they're like, oh, Microsoft ripping off Facebook, right? Like, yes,

Mikah Sargent (01:14:39):
I saw

Mary Jo Foley (01:14:40):
Microsoft. They're copying Facebook. It's like, no guys, they have a product called Yammer. They do these things called yam jams. Not even making that up. That's a real thing they talk about at Microsoft. <Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (01:14:50):
Just imagine someone holding up a jar

Mary Jo Foley (01:14:52):
On top of Yamer and especially let people use things like storylines, stories, this new video clip technology that lets you make short videos and embed them in posts so that you can talk to your colleagues and exchange information and get to know them. Okay. Using clip chats. The reason this was so confusing is Microsoft already has this app. It's called teams com teams, communities, or communities, teams, teams, communities. And so what they're doing is they're rebranding teams, communities as engage. And they're going to use that technology inside Viva, but at the same time, they're keeping Yammer around. They're not killing the brand. So the official Microsoft term for this is hybrid branding. I'm also not making that up. It means you are giving a product, a new name, but you're not killing the old name completely so that you're having both these things go on at the same time, it's hybrid like cool hybrid. Right? Yay.

Mikah Sargent (01:15:48):
That's so

Mary Jo Foley (01:15:49):
Confusing. <Laugh> yeah. The write ups of this were pretty all over the map. And I think, I think Microsoft has a lot more explaining to do on this and, and has to clarify a lot of things about this for people to get it. <Laugh> one more announcement from, from inspire that you guys may or may not care about, but enterprise will care about this. So Microsoft is creating a digital contact center and the way they're doing this is they're taking a bunch of products they already have and mushing 'em together. That's the official term, mushing them. Together<Laugh> they're taking teams dynamics 365 power platform and then nuance. You know, they just bought this company called nuance. For 19.7 billion nuance is mostly a healthcare company, but they have a lot of AI technology too. And they have their own contact center at nuance.

Mary Jo Foley (01:16:38):
So Microsoft is taking all these different piece parts they're bringing them together and creating a contact center. So this is for people, you know, who in sales who have to talk to people all day on their headsets. You know, they need to track information about their clients, see where the opportunities are, know things like when was the last time I called this person. So this unified contact center will do all of this for you. So they they're actually gonna start selling this kind of as a disparate, disparate pieces, loosely joined and over time kind of make it more of a true unified offering.

Mikah Sargent (01:17:09):
How does nuance play into it?

Mary Jo Foley (01:17:11):
So nuance has AI technology that is going to be part of this. It does things like sentiment analysis. So when you're talking to somebody on the phone, oh mm-hmm <affirmative> and they sound really mad. It'll be like, yeah, the person you're talking to, isn't really liking the pitch you're making right now. Maybe you wanna, oh, Lord set up a little. Yeah. so that's, that's one of the things it does. They call nuances, AI technology is secure AI com AI infused context center technology. That's a mouthful, but yeah, that's, that's one of the things they have and what they do. Yeah, so there are a lot of other announcements at the partner show every year. There's like lots of new partner programs. I'm gonna talk in my pick of a pick of the week, a little bit more about one other thing. And I'll talk a bit more about where they're going with vertical stuff at Microsoft, but yeah, that's, that's in a nutshell, if I was gonna tell you what was cool at inspire, those are the three main things I would say, but there was some non-fire news too, that these guys wanted me to make sure we talked about having to do with discord and Xbox <laugh>. I was trying to avoid talking about Xbox on the show today, but I guess we're not gonna be able to totally avoid it. So either

Mikah Sargent (01:18:24):
Of you can, so Mary Jo, you and I can sit back while they talk about it. We can

Mary Jo Foley (01:18:27):
<Laugh>, we can,

Zac Bowden (01:18:29):
This isn't really a huge announcement, but the, today I think it was only today, the Xbox discord announced discord, voice chat integration directly on Xbox. So now if you have a discord account and you could link that up to your Xbox and chat with people on discord using your Xbox headset, plugged into an Xbox in your living room. And that's a huge thing. I think lots of gamers have been asking for for a long time. And it is interesting because wasn't Microsoft rumored to be in talks to buy discord at one point, yes, that obviously fell through and never happened. <Laugh> but I wonder if this was sort of always planned or if this sort of came to be after that conversation happened. And although it fell through, maybe they were like, Hey, let's keep in contact. And now this is what's happened. Who knows? But yeah, the Xbox and discord and now integrated in the users of each platform can chat with each other, which is a big deal in the gaming world.

Mikah Sargent (01:19:18):
I was gonna say, I know I joked about sitting back, but this is huge on so many levels because one of course, yes, I know lots of friends of mine who are gamers use discord all the time, but this gives you the ability to not have to be part of that horrible, horrible experience that is Xbox live chat with horrible people who say horrible things. And instead you can just communicate with your community that you've set up on discord. Yeah. I think that's incredible.

Zac Bowden (01:19:45):
Yeah, it's great. And I, I think it's only for voice right now, so there's no chat, which makes sense. Very few people are chatting with text on an Xbox <laugh>, but yeah. Voice chat, which was the, was the big thing is finally coming and will be integrated into the Xbox guide and stuff. So I don't think it requires a dedicated app on Xbox. It's all integrated, so the experience should be seamless. And that's really nice to see

Mikah Sargent (01:20:06):
That is a smart move actually on all of their parts. I know Paul regularly talks about how there's all this talk about trying to deal with the toxicity of Xbox gaming and everything that is going on there and the abuse and whatnot. And he has, you know, regularly said that they don't ever really do much in that way. And I think this is one way where that can be addressed is if you can, you know, still have the fun of being able to communicate with folks, but in a way where you are more in charge of, of who is, is there and who's talking to you and who you talk to, I think that's a really smart move on Xbox's part. And of course it's a great move for discord that, I mean, yeah, used to people creating new communities all the time on discord.

Mikah Sargent (01:20:55):
Alright, well, before we get to tips and picks, I think we'll take another break and then we'll return for the back of the book and everything there. I wanna tell you about INFR scale. We're bringing you this episode of windows weekly. See the statistics for ransomware attacks are quite alarming when you dig into them, cyber criminals can penetrate up to 93% of company networks, according to report from beta news.com. And it's not just large organizations, 46% of SMBs have been victims of ransomware attacks as well. The in for scale cloud backup solution is here to help. It'll provide the security. You need to manage backups and secures them from hackers or adverse events. You can back up and protect your endpoint data and never pay a ransom, which means you'll sleep easier at night. You can back up SAS applications, endpoint servers, as well as execute disaster recovery on site or in the cloud.

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Mary Jo Foley (01:23:55):
Yeah. I, I don't know if you wanted to ask for any listener live listener questions.

Mikah Sargent (01:24:00):
Oh, we could do that. Yeah. 

Mary Jo Foley (01:24:03):
We got people on, you know, TWITtter who are listening in and we got people on the discord and chat, I think IRC chat, you guys have people. So

Mikah Sargent (01:24:12):
We do. Yes. If you've got questions for the, I know

Mary Jo Foley (01:24:15):
The guests, you've got two of the, you've got two of the best windows Watchers and Microsoft Watchers on the show today, Zach and rich. So take advantage of this chip questions. Give 'em some hard questions. I have one for Zach. Actually, if I can start out,

Mikah Sargent (01:24:30):
Please

Zac Bowden (01:24:30):
Do. Go ahead. <Laugh>

Mary Jo Foley (01:24:32):
All right. Tell us what happened with the Neo, like surface Neo, right? Like that we saw, we saw the surface Neo dual screen windows device. It was supposed to run 10 X, but okay. Why can't they just still do a surface Neo type device, dual screen laptop, or dual screen portable kind of thing with either running windows or running Android? Why not? Like can't they do this? 

Zac Bowden (01:24:58):
So the Neo that was announced from a hardware perspective kind of was flawed as far as I'm aware also it was just sort of hit with blow after blow, after it was announced mm-hmm <affirmative> obviously 10 X was, was, was canceled along the way. And this was device was built with 10 X in mind. Not that they couldn't put windows 11 on it, if they really wanted to. But then Intel canceled the chip. It was supposed to ship with, which I think was an Intel Lakefield chip or some kind the same chip in the Lenovo X one fold, I believe. And as far as where, you know, I I've spoken to a number of people who were testing the hardware or new people who was testing the hardware. And one of the, the, one of the things I consistently heard was the device just ran hot and throttled a lot.

Zac Bowden (01:25:39):
It was super thin. It, it, and didn't have a fan in it. And the Intel chip they were using was not very efficient. So it was just not a great experience that paired with windows 10 X, just not being ready and the ambulation or the virtualization tech they were using being quite heavy on the device when things like teams didn't work very well on it. And teams is obviously a vital application for lots of Microsoft employees. And those self-hosting the hardware just weren't able to sort of use teams on it properly. There were a lot of issues with it. So if, if they were to ever announce the near or ship the Neo again, I think it would be a radically different device. The other thing is I just, I think maybe they realized that dual screen PCs just aren't gonna happen in that way.

Rich Woods (01:26:20):
<Laugh> I think that's it' I would, yeah, they're not doing dual screen feces, like cuz cause they're not, when they, when they killed 10 X they, they were talking about adding some of those features to windows 11 or maybe it was rumored that they were gonna add some of those features to windows 11, but they, they didn't, they are not like Intel, Intel has announced an Evo spec for foldables and OEMs still have to make their own custom software for that to be a good experience. Microsoft is not putting that kind of development into windows 11. Yeah. Last I heard. So, so also, I mean that, that Lakefield chip was ki it was almost like a prototype chip at the time. It was like, like a proof of concept, like it had had the new hybrid architecture and they were putting it out there for these specialized types of PCs.

Rich Woods (01:27:08):
And I think it was always going to be replaced by 12th gen where the entire lineup has that hybrid architecture. Like you could make something new with, with like a, with like a 12 gen U nine processor, which is a nine wat hybrid chip like a next generation of, of that, of that Lakefield chip. Or you could use an arm chip, which, you know, like we talked about before, there's gonna be some like, like gen three is a lot more powerful and they'll have something even more powerful later on this year. So yeah. I mean like the hardware could, could, could happen. It's just that Microsoft isn't focusing on the software right now. And if they're not focusing on the software, then that they're just not doing the hardware.

Zac Bowden (01:27:43):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's because that, they've just decided that dual screens just isn't gonna happen in the window space. I don't think there's any OEMs lining up to ship dual screen devices. So I, I think the next big thing for the windows PC space will be foldable single screen foldable. And it wouldn't shock me if Microsoft sort of, if they were to revive the Neo, revive it as a single screen foldable because you know, later I think Intel announced that a wave of foldable PCs are coming and I think ACEs Novo's teasing theirs. Yeah. Yeah. Lenovo's teasing theirs and I wouldn't be surprised if Dell and HP have stuff up their sleeves as well. And you know, if they've got it, if they're working on their stuff, then surely Microsoft is also

Mikah Sargent (01:28:23):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, there's a good question. I saw earlier on does the new schedule for updates this idea that there are gonna be more moments that take place mean that maybe seekers won't have to use the beta? What is it called? The beta circle, the beta ring. What is it now these days <laugh> and instead can get fun, new stuff all the time. Is this a way to kind of give people the opportunity to seek out new things without having to be in those other tracks or rings?

Zac Bowden (01:28:55):
Well the features will still be tested in the dev and beta channels before they're deemed ready to roll out. Of course, I don't think Microsoft is just gonna drop new features to, to the production, you know, version of windows without any testing. So if you wanted access to features earlier then the insider program will probably still be the way to go about that. But yeah, for end users, they will be getting new features more frequently. But they will still gone through testing first. They're not just gonna roll those features out to everybody without testing them.

Mikah Sargent (01:29:25):
And then robo in the chat says as an Android user, what I want is updates and support. How likely is Microsoft to support the duo and for how long,

Rich Woods (01:29:38):
The original duo

Zac Bowden (01:29:39):
Didn't, they <laugh> the original duo. So they said that the original duo was gonna be supported for three years three years of major updates. I'm not too sure if they said anything longer for security updates. The duo one so far has had one major feature update. Technically I think it was probably destined for Android 13 before things are thrown into question. Whereas the do two, I guess is one year newer, so Android 14. So yeah, there's a long way to go for, for the do or two, at least in regards to updates. But the do one is I would say maybe halfway through its life support life cycle at this point, maybe a bit more.

Rich Woods (01:30:14):
Do you think that they'll do you think they'll stick to that three year that three year life cycle when they, when they seem to run about a year behind on these updates?

Zac Bowden (01:30:24):
Yeah. when the duo one first launched, I had heard that Microsoft was had to, or will have to pay Callcom for the additional, for the extra year, because they are a year behind four continued updates on Android. So they have committed to that. I believe so. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:30:42):
Okay. And then Mary Jo, there was a question. Yep.

Mary Jo Foley (01:30:48):
1 0 7, yes. A window seven question. So last week there were some rumors based, I think based on code that somebody found in one of the beta builds of windows that suggested that Microsoft might be extending the possibility of buying support contracts for windows seven past January, 2023. So they had, they had a three year extension where each year beyond when support ended, you could pay to continue to get security updates for windows seven. It was super expensive. Like something only enterprises would do. And you had to jump through all these hoops to get the extended, extended support. So there was a rumor that Microsoft might be extending it past January 20, 23, if people were willing to pay for it. And so this week I finally get an answer from Microsoft and they said, Nope, we are not extending it past 20, January 20, 23. That's the end of it for windows seven, no more security updates. So that's the official answer on that?

Mikah Sargent (01:31:52):
Well, there, you heard it, it's coming to an end for real this time we promise we're serious, stop making that face. I'm telling you the truth. And then someone asks Microsoft has the sq series SOCs for the surface 10. Is there any indication they would have a custom branded SOC for surface duo and future mobile devices?

Rich Woods (01:32:13):
No, no. I'll, I'll tell you why, but I'll here. Here's the thing here. The custom branded is, is what that is, right. And just because also in surface laptop, they have the AMD Verizon surface edition chips, which are maybe a little bit tweaked, but they are very much just rebranded processors. The sq one was a Snapdragon H CX I think it had a slightly higher clock speed, but, but that is it. They are not custom processors. And Microsoft kind of does this in a way to, I, I guess, make the processors look better. So they use AMD and Qualcomm because they're lesser partners than Intel. On the phone side of things, Qualcomm is the power player like Intel is on PCs. So I don't think you'll ever see any kind of custom Qualcomm chip to that goes in a surface duo.

Mikah Sargent (01:33:10):
There you go. All right. I think that's the end of the Q and a if you're ready to move on to the back of the book, Mary Jo,

Mary Jo Foley (01:33:19):
We are, and we've got some picks and tips from our guests today.

Mikah Sargent (01:33:23):
Awesome. Awesome.

Mary Jo Foley (01:33:24):
Yep. So let's see. We'll do app pick one, which is from Zach. He has an interesting app that he told me about in the windows sorry, in the Microsoft store today. Unigram, which is a telegram for windows.

Zac Bowden (01:33:44):
Yeah. This is a universal telegram client. So if you are, if you use telegram on your phone or if you use the windows, the actual official telegram client for windows this is a universe, a UWP version of that, which is great for multiple reasons. One it can receive notifications, push notifications when closed. So it's just like a phone app in, in that regard. Two it's compiled for windows in our natively, the official telegram client isn't unfortunately. So you will get better performance using this client if you're using a surface pro X, for example, and three, the UI is just nicer. It uses win UI and looks, you know, you follows the windows 11 design language. And although it is an unofficial telegram client, I believe people who work at telegram do work on this client. So it's, although it is unofficial, it does have telegrams official blessing as far as I'm aware. And it's, and it's really nice. It's fast. It loads fast it's UWP app. So it, well, for the most, I, I believe it's UWP app. It looks like a UWP app and it works great. So yeah, I reckon if you use telegram frequently on your windows PC, especially if you are using windows and arm, definitely to give you Agram a try. Cause it's really nice.

Mary Jo Foley (01:34:50):
Nice. All right. At pick two is a gaming pick from our friend rich. He had to go and spoil yes. The way

Mikah Sargent (01:34:57):
You said that the one is a gaming pack.

Mary Jo Foley (01:35:00):
<Laugh>,

Rich Woods (01:35:00):
It's a game I wanted to make sure that there was some Xbox on the show. This was very, very important. So there's a game. I don't know if anybody's heard, but it's called Fort or horizon five. Okay. there's a new hot wheels expansion pack. They've done this before with previous forts or horizon games, and it's a ton of fun. And as the image showed, you're pretty much driving around on hot wheels tracks. And so it, it they announced it not, I mean, not too long ago, a month or two ago, whatever, but it's available now. It, it came out yesterday and if you have four horizon, five premium you could download the expansion from the Microsoft store, the Xbox app or whatever they're making you download games from today. <Laugh> yeah. Sorry. but yeah, it's, it's a lot of fun.

Rich Woods (01:35:46):
If you have the premium edition, you should totally go and get it. Like, just watch the video. Like it's, it's so much fun. I was playing it all night last night. If you don't have the premium addition you could get just this expansion for 1999. There's an expansions bundle for 34 99, but the premium add-ons bundle, which pretty much, you know promotes you to the premium addition completely is actually $10 off. So that's 39 point 99. So that's probably an even better deal than just getting the expansions bundle. But yeah, if you've if you've got the premium edition, go get it

Mary Jo Foley (01:36:22):
Nice. I'm, I'm kind of surprised you didn't pick a new game called stray, which I view, oh my

Rich Woods (01:36:28):
Goodness. You know, I wanted that to, I wanted that to be your Xbox pick.

Mary Jo Foley (01:36:32):
Yeah. I two Xbox picks <laugh>

Mikah Sargent (01:36:35):
My partner's been playing it nonstop on the PlayStation really and loves it. Absolutely loves it. And it seems really cool. It's really well designed.

Mary Jo Foley (01:36:43):
Yeah. So it's about, it's about cats, stray cats, like in a cyber punk world or something. Right. And now, yeah, there's a TWITtter, there's even a TWITtter account where somebody has started it. It's called cats watch stray on TWITtter. And it's just pictures of people's cats and dogs. I see Tom Warren's dog and that's great watching stray <laugh>

Mikah Sargent (01:37:05):
They use like real meows of cats and there, it always changes. I, I can only speak for the PlayStation. He's got the PS five. And so when he is playing the meows come out of the controller itself, so my dogs are also going like, what the heck has happening over here. And yeah, I think that's part of the reason why PE why people's pets are paying attention is cuz of the sounds that are playing whenever. Yeah. The cat's walking around.

Mary Jo Foley (01:37:31):
<Laugh> nice. All right. I did not do an Xbox pick, but I do. I do have an enterprise pick. This is another pick from the Microsoft inspire partner conference this week. So, you know Microsoft's been announcing a lot of things. They call industry clouds lately, and industry clouds are vertical clouds. So what they do is they take all the different pieces of stuff. They call the Microsoft cloud. So there's Azure, there's dynamics 365, there's Microsoft 365 slash office 365. There's a power platform. And they bundle these things up with some custom templates and some custom workflows, various APIs, and they sell these things as a vertical cloud. So they already have Microsoft cloud for healthcare, for retail, for manufacturing. They even have a horizontal cloud. That's part of this called the Microsoft cloud for sustainability. This week they announced another one. That's kind of a weird outlier in a, in a way it's called the Microsoft cloud for sovereignty.

Mary Jo Foley (01:38:33):
So sovereignty is one of these weird buzzwords that's really becoming very prominent. In the enterprise space, you often hear people talk about data sovereignty. The, that idea is if you're in a country where there are really strict requirements about where data can reside, oh that you need to pay attention to the rules around sovereignty. So what Microsoft's doing is they're creating the, this cloud for sovereignty. That's gonna be customized by partners in the different countries for each kind of custom situation. And it's going to have everything you need around governance around security, around data residency a lot of other standards that matter to countries in terms of how data's managed, where it's stored, how you, how people access it and who can access it. And they're gonna sell this as the Microsoft cloud for sovereignty. I was talking to a Microsoft partner today.

Mary Jo Foley (01:39:28):
One of my friends who said, Microsoft's really all in on this industry cloud push, like they're really going more and more vertical. Like EV you hear them talking about vertical, this vertical, that more than ever. And he said, I'm not so sure partners sell that way. Right? Like he, he thinks partners tend to sell more generic solutions that can be applied across industries. So he's wondering how the uptake is gonna be on this, but I can tell you, based on some of these sessions I was watching at inspire, this is Microsoft. This is gonna be a new buzzword. When we do our next buzzword drinking bingo card, this is gonna be on it. <Laugh> vertical cloud industry, cloud sovereignty. All those words are gonna be very important. And we'll probably hear about 'em on earnings next week too. I bet. So, yeah, that's my enterprise pick

Mikah Sargent (01:40:14):
Awesome sovereignty

Mary Jo Foley (01:40:16):
Sovereign.

Mikah Sargent (01:40:17):
And now we head into the secrets secret secrets with the code name pick of the week.

Mary Jo Foley (01:40:24):
<Laugh>. Yeah. So this is a really weird one too. Year, several years ago, Microsoft was working on a some technology through Microsoft research for doing drone simulations I don't know if Zach or rich remembers this, but we were at one of the Microsoft events and they had a maker of drones there and they were talking about how they were working with Microsoft on simulating drones and there's all this cool AI technology behind it in including something called project Boni, which Microsoft is based on another thing that Microsoft bought years ago. Okay. So cut to now, Microsoft kills off this asome work that they're doing with Microsoft research. And then this week they launched something called project a Simm. So add the word project in front of Aero SIM. And this is a new thing now, right? It does the exact same thing.

Mary Jo Foley (01:41:16):
It's it's simulation for autonomous aerospace vehicles, including drones, planes you know, hobbyist drones, but also professional drones. If you think about the applications for this it's things like drones that fly over power plants or over crop fields, and they can then send back images to people so that they don't have to go out to these fields in case something breaks or in case they need to do repairs. The project asome technology, which is now, which is now in preview lets you kind of check out how this will look with all these thousands or millions of AI simulations that Microsoft has generated and is making available to customers of project air SIM. So I thought I was like, oh, this is interesting. They announced this right before their inspire conference. Well then I found out actually AWS announced some drone technology this week. So that's probably why they announced project asome this week. <Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (01:42:12):
Okay. Now that makes sense.

Mary Jo Foley (01:42:14):
It does, but yeah. That's the code name? Projects project. Asome a, I R S I M.

Mikah Sargent (01:42:21):
All right. And then last but not least it's for a drink.

Mary Jo Foley (01:42:27):
Yes. instead of doing a beer pick this week, I am doing a drink pick. I've been drinking a lot of this because it's been so hot and sometimes when it's really hot, I don't even wanna drink a beer. That's how hot it is. Like even a cold beer doesn't sound like a good drink. So I don't know if you guys, anybody on the show or listeners have ever had a thing called Agua Omeka. It's basically hibiscus ice tea. Ah,

Mikah Sargent (01:42:56):
Oh, this is what Leo's always talking about. He's mentioned this stuff a lot.

Mary Jo Foley (01:43:00):
It is delicious. So a lot of Mexican restaurants here and I'm sure everywhere have this. So what you do is you brew hibiscus leaves with sugar and water and you chill it and then you add some crushed ice and you add some lime juice and it is so refreshing. It's like way more refreshing than even drinking water. I put a recipe for it in case anybody wants to try making it at home. Like you can get hibiscus leaves on Amazon and you can get them like at specialty markets and stores. My one caution is if you make this, this stains very, very badly, it can stain your dishes. It can stain your strainers and spoons and even definitely your clothes. So if you splash any of this on you, you're gonna turn bright pink. But it's worth it because the drink is so delicious and refreshing no calories basically or very few calories. And it's good for children. Good for adults. No alcohol. I know I'm doing a non-alcoholic drink today. <Laugh> it's, it's totally worth making. I've already made so much of it like this past week. I feel like I'm gonna turn bright pink pretty soon because I've been drinking a lot of it. <Laugh> but yeah, it's, it's a very, very refreshing ice tea that you should try.

Mikah Sargent (01:44:17):
Sounds amazing. I, yeah, and like I said, Leo's mentioned it in the past and he made, he made his with a, a sugar free sweetener and used too much of it. So it resulted in some stomach upset, but oh no, if you,

Mary Jo Foley (01:44:34):
If

Mikah Sargent (01:44:34):
You, you know, if you play play it right then I think it could probably be very refreshing. That sounds really good. All right. Well, I think that brings us to the end of this episode of windows weekly. Of course we have to thank the Mary Jo Foley of all about microsoft.com, ZD net blog. Thank you for your time this week.

Mary Jo Foley (01:44:56):
Yeah, it was great. It was really fun to have the mice come to play while the cats were away. <Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (01:45:04):
Thinking of Leo and Paul as cats and I guess some very grumpy cats. Huh? <laugh> yeah,

Mary Jo Foley (01:45:12):
It can be sometimes they can.

Mikah Sargent (01:45:16):
And of course, thank you to our incredible guests, rich woods, managing editor at XTA. Thank you for being here.

Rich Woods (01:45:23):
Thanks for having me. This was lots of fun.

Mary Jo Foley (01:45:26):
It was, it was so fun. Yeah. <Laugh>

Rich Woods (01:45:28):
Yeah, we had a great time. I think. Yeah, like you said, it's like, it's like being at, at rattle and just talking about this, hang out

Mary Jo Foley (01:45:34):
Out exactly. <Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (01:45:37):
Next time the cats are away. I think we, we know who's who's around as well as Zach Bowden, senior editor at windows central. Thank you for your time today.

Zac Bowden (01:45:46):
Thank you for having me. Yeah. This has been a blast. I can't wait to do it again. Hopefully we get to do it again soon.

Mary Jo Foley (01:45:50):
<Laugh> yes, yes. I know we have people on discord saying tell the guests they can come back any time. Please let them know. So seems to be a win-win

Mikah Sargent (01:46:00):
<Laugh> yes. An absolute win. Let me see. 1, 2, 3, win, win, win. <Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (01:46:05):
In any case, thank you all for tuning in this week. Of course you can check out windows weekly. As we record the show live every Wednesday, starting at 11:00 AM Pacific time at TWIT TV slash live. But the best way to get the show is by subscribing to the show which you can do by going to TWIT.tv/ww. When you go there, you will see links to subscribe to audio or video clicking on those. We'll show you the different places where it's available on apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, YouTube. We try to be in all those places. And also I should mention, don't forget to check out club TWIT, TWIT TV slash club TWIT for seven bucks a month. You can join the club. I believe that's $84 a year. If you want to go for the annual plan and by joining the club, well, you get quite a few things.

Mikah Sargent (01:46:52):
First, you get access to your own personal feeds that have no ads in them. So it's just the content. You get access to the TWITt plus bonus feed that has extra content. You won't find anywhere else. That's behind the scenes before the show, after the show plus some fun stuff that we hosts put out every once in a while and access to the club, TWIT discord server. That's a place where you can go to chat with your fellow club. TWIT members share lots of funny images and have a good time and also chat with those of us here at TWIT TWITt.tv/club tweet is how you sign up for that. And also you can now check out, I believe it's it's out. Now I've gotta check to make sure, but definitely you can check out my show. That is a club TWIT exclusive show. It is called hands on Mac. Don't tell don't tell Mary Jo about it. But also hands on windows, which is live that's Paul Thra show that is available as part of club TWIT. So great stuff there. TWIT do TV slash club TWIT to check it out. I think that's, that's it, that's it. And that's all. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of windows weekly, Leo LePort will be back next week as will Paul Thra. And so you'll be able to see them then until next time. Goodbye,