For most people, Microsoft and Windows go hand in hand. Yet the operating system has clearly been neglected lately. The result is an unpopular Windows 11 with bugs, feature bloat, a partly dated interface, and mediocre performance. Former Microsoft employee Ewan Dalton has tried to explain how it got to this point.
From flagship product to symbol
One key point: hardly anyone buys Windows as a standalone product anymore. Revenue comes mainly from OEM licenses. Manufacturers buy licenses from Microsoft and sell their devices with Windows 11 preinstalled. On top of that, enterprise customers provision their machines centrally through management tools. Windows hasn't been the company's top revenue product for a long time.
Dalton links this to Microsoft's corporate culture. Teams traditionally leaned toward rivalry rather than collaboration, and money for innovation flowed to whoever made management the best promises. Since Satya Nadella became CEO, that competitive culture is said to have been dialed back in favor of a more cooperative approach. But because the competition is fierce, Windows is no longer seen as the most important element and gets a correspondingly smaller development budget.
Cloud and AI pull resources away
Products like Microsoft 365 and especially Azure with its underlying cloud infrastructure are more flexible. Someone using a Mac won't buy Windows, but can still be sold cloud services and Office subscriptions. So the Windows teams gradually received less funding, while the system was neglected in favor of other areas, including the current investments in AI resources.
The catch: many people still see Windows as Microsoft's flagship product, even though it no longer brings in the most revenue. If Windows 11 keeps its poor reputation, that could rub off on other products. Customers might switch to Linux, to a different cloud solution, or to an alternative office suite. That's precisely why Microsoft is now investing more heavily in developing Windows 11 again. It won't necessarily help direct Windows revenue, but the reputation of the entire company is at stake if the operating system fails.