Thinking more about Surface Neo and Duo- Last week, Microsoft released the SDK and emulator for the Android-based Duo; ones for Neo coming soon- The Duo SDK for Mac developers also is now available (as of this week) - So let's think ahead about why Microsoft is calling these devices "a new category"- Who is the intended audience? It's not creatives (who were big targets of the Surface tablets/PCs)- Are these going to be positioned as PCs? Tablets? Is Apple still a primary competitive target for these devices?- What kinds of software and services will be preloaded?- What are the hardware, M365/O365 and Edge/MSN/Bing teams contributing? (they supposedly develop these new devices together) New launcher, unified search, stuff like Collections?- Will developers find these dual-screen devices interesting enough to target? Or not till the UI comes to "regular" PCs?- Will Neo and Duo attract users who don't see a need for a PC anymore? Does MS think they could be users' sole (or maybe secondary) devices?Thinking more about search- Last week, Microsoft made a bad move: Deciding to hijack the Chrome browsers of O365 ProPlus users and switch their search engine to Bing- So far, Microsoft has not claimed "based on user feedback" that they're undoing this move- The real reason for this: Microsoft is starting to push Bing as an Intranet search engine (see MS Search in Bing; Project Cortex, the new Office app experience)- Implications of this - Microsoft will lose the moral high-ground if it doesn't do the right thingWindows 10- Windows version 1909 usage share hits 15 percent- New Insider build, no more Insider PWA app- New CU fixes at least some File Explorer problems for 1903/1909 users- Related: Microsoft to bring Edge tab management feature to Chrome- Semi-related: A major USB-C bug has hit virtually all modern ThinkPads.- Not really related, but still worth a mention: Premium Outlook.com users are losing personalized email addresses at end of Feb. (unless you subscribe to O365)Windows 7!- FSF wants Microsoft to open-source Windows. They're nuts. And yet...- Microsoft has one more security update coming for Windows 7Xbox- New Games with Gold for FebruaryTips and picks- Tip of the week: Help me pick the next programming project- .NETpad (Visual Basic/Windows Forms/.NET Framework) is winding down, so the next one will be a C#/WPF/.NET Framework/Core project. And I need some ideas.- App pick of the week: Surface Duo Emulator- Enterprise pick of the week: Dynamics 365 Wave 1 2020- Enterprise pick No. 2: Beware the LDAP signing apocalypse in March- Beer pick of the week: Perennial Abraxas
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