Project Reunion: Microsofts unified app strategy is still missing one piece

▤ Summary

The Windows 8 Developer Preview included a roster of these modern apps that had literally been written as "How I spent my summer vacation" projects by Microsoft interns. The Universal Windows Platform (UWP) was a shaky bet to begin with, but it became a complete non-starter once Microsoft gave up its ambitions for mobile devices. You could also look at Apple, which is creeping along at a glacial pace in its incremental efforts to turn iPad into a real PC, and you realize that trying to unify the mobile-desktop worlds is much harder than it looks. Fast-forward to 2020 and Microsoft Edge, the new default browser for Windows 10 based on the open source Chromium engine, manages to incorporate those modern features and support touchscreen devices without alienating fans of legacy desktop apps. Microsofts been reasonably successful at building tools that make its developers happy, including a new command-line Windows Package Manager that simplifies the task of standing up a dev workstation.

▦ Linked Companies

GitHub, Inc.

$1M to $5M