Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft’s former president of Windows, published an interesting review of the MacBook Neo that also looks at what went wrong with Microsoft’s own early efforts at lightweight ARM-based PCs. This is what he said.
MacBook Neo may be the path Microsoft didn’t choose
For those who aren’t familiar with Steven Sinofsky, he has been with Microsoft since 1989, when he joined the company as a software design engineer, and left in 2012 to lead multiple teams and departments related to Office and Windows.
After leaving Microsoft, Sinofsky started a blog called Learning by Shipping, where he publishes “essays, thoughts, and messages about management, strategy, competition, and other aspects of the technology industry.”
His posts often provide a refreshingly candid look at his time at Microsoft and the industry as a whole, and he doesn’t shy away from insightful criticism (and self-criticism) when appropriate.
In a new post titled “An Afternoon of Reflection and Melancholy with the Mac Neo,” Sinofsky echoes the near-unanimous praise heaped upon the MacBook Neo from other reviews this week (including our own).
But he also sees Apple’s success with its new low-cost laptops from the perspective of someone who has tried similar maneuvers in the past, albeit with vastly different results.
“When I thought about Windows 8 over the past decade, I often settled on the conclusion that it was too early, wrong, or too early, when I didn’t want to feel too bad.
But today I’m using Neo and thinking about Windows 8 and Surface. I have to admit that I am having a hard time coming to that conclusion. All the pieces were in place then, and all the pieces worked. (…) In the world in which we lived, it was quite possible to run this device. And it was $599 for 32GB with keyboard and $699 for 64GB. (…)
What we did wrong was to move our ecosystem too quickly to a new app model that was more secure, reliable, and energy efficient. Many people objected to this. (…) From the day we introduced ARM, we aimed to break away from the x86 Windows world and reinvent it. I knew that my small step in the Microsoft world was actually a lifelong commitment. You can see this by looking at how ARM is being treated today as a permanent replacement for x86. We saw it then and we still see it that way as an alternative. There is no revisionist history here. That was our strategy. ”
Sinofsky contrasts Apple’s decades-long efforts to move developers to new APIs and frameworks, which he argues made the transition to ARM-based Macs much easier than Microsoft’s efforts (and made the transition to the MacBook Neo possible), but Microsoft’s efforts were limited by a commitment to near-perpetual backward compatibility.
This is just the crux of Sinofsky’s thesis on why Microsoft’s attempt to create something similar to the MacBook Neo failed years ago, but the full post is packed with interesting insights and his usual PR-free musings on past projects, issues, and more.
As for his actual review of the MacBook Neo, he provides an interesting way to think about the trade-offs Apple had to make to offer this $599 laptop, and the whole debate over who it’s actually for.
Neo doesn’t need to get better. Just need to stay in excellent condition. There are two more levels of laptops and two levels of desktops if you need them or just want to improve. Plus an iPad. Neo in 5 years will be more powerful than most of these, but will probably still cost $699. Moore’s Law is unbeatable.
Click this link to see his full post.
Worth checking out on Amazon
