GoKawiilIf there’s one thing I know about Microsoft after covering the company for more than 20 years, it’s that it will always respond to a competitive threat. Apple’s MacBook Air convinced Microsoft and Intel to launch thin and light laptops with the Ultrabook initiative, the iPad pushed Microsoft to create its own tablet hardware, and the threat of Chromebooks saw Microsoft try to match the security and simplicity of ChromeOS with S mode versions of Windows.
A history of fast follows (and my own sources) tells me that Apple’s $599 MacBook Neo announcement last month will force Microsoft to seriously improve Windows. A lot of changes are imminent. Barely two weeks after Apple announced the MacBook Neo, Microsoft unveiled a plan to fix Windows 11 that involves focusing on performance, reliability, and the overall user experience.
It’s no coincidence that Microsoft announced these Windows changes around the same time as the MacBook Neo. Just like how former CEO Steve Ballmer held up an HP tablet PC days before Apple’s original iPad announcement in 2010, Microsoft has always closely followed Apple, be it with the Zune or making Windows Mobile a touch-friendly OS.
Sources familiar with Microsoft’s Windows efforts tell me that plans to improve the operating system started last summer. The Windows team first started improving the consistency of dark mode across the operating system as an early easy win in the fall. But as the threat of a low-cost MacBook emerged, and reviewers, enthusiasts, and consumers grew more vocal about the pain points of Windows 11, Microsoft started to look at a bigger response.
One of the key changes being planned for Windows 11 later this year is improvements to memory efficiency. The plan is to reduce the memory footprint of Windows 11 to open the door to devices with less RAM. Not only will this help PC makers respond to the ongoing RAM crisis, it will also help them ship devices that respond to the MacBook Neo low price point enabled, in part, by its meager 8GB of RAM.
Microsoft is also working on improving search in Windows, reducing the latency of the Start menu, and speeding up File Explorer. Windows 11 users will also finally be able to move the taskbar to the top or sides of a screen, and even pause Windows updates for as long as they want. Microsoft is also promising to reduce the noise and distractions of Windows, which will hopefully mean fewer ads and annoying pop-ups. All of these changes should add up to a faster, less annoying version of Windows 11 that runs more reliably on devices with less memory.
This renewed engineering effort reminds me of Microsoft’s response to Apple’s M1 chips. The M1 showed that a phone-like chip could easily power a laptop and offer much better performance-per-watt than anything Intel could ship. While Microsoft had spent a decade dabbling with Windows on Arm, the M1 kicked off an even bigger effort with Qualcomm to respond with Copilot Plus PCs. Microsoft was so confident it had finally nailed the transition to Arm that it spent an entire day showing off progress to members of the media, pitting its new hardware directly against the MacBook Air.
I’m still surprised that I use an Arm-powered Windows laptop daily, especially as Microsoft’s original Windows on Arm launch with the Surface RT was such a mess that it led to the company pivoting to focus on Intel-based Surface Pro devices for many years instead. It wasn’t until 2019 that Microsoft got serious about Windows on Arm again. Microsoft’s Windows chief, Pavan Davuluri, was a key engineer in the effort with Qualcomm to make Windows on Arm a reality. Davuluri worked on the custom Surface processors with AMD and Qualcomm, and helped launch the impressive Surface Pro X model ahead of Apple’s transition to its own silicon.
Davuluri is now leading the effort to improve Windows 11 and once again respond to a competitive threat from Apple. The launch of Copilot Plus PCs helped temporarily stem the flow of Windows laptop users switching to a MacBook Air at the premium end of the laptop market, but a $599 MacBook Neo is an even bigger threat since it targets the mass-market audience. Apple is also chasing iPhone owners who might be considering a budget Windows laptop, which will put a lot of pressure on Microsoft’s OEM partners.
Davuluri has assembled a team of engineers and designers to tackle the Windows problems, with Marcus Ash, head of design and research for Windows + Devices, leading the effort. Ash previously worked on Windows Phone at Microsoft and was one of the founding members of the Cortana digital assistant. Microsoft would have probably named Cortana something like “Microsoft Personal Digital Assistant Home Premium” if it wasn’t for Ash’s team pushing to make the codename the product name.
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