Microsoft Shelves Windows 10X, It is not Shipping in 2021
Microsoft Shelves Windows 10X, It is not Shipping in 2021
Posted: 07 May 2021
Back in the fall of 2019, Microsoft held a Surface event that will likely go down in history as one of the most ambitious announcements from the company. At the keynote, Microsoft unveiled three new products that were not only completely new for the company but also pushed them in a bold new direction.
The Surface Duo, Surface Neo, and Windows 10X grabbed all the headlines; Microsoft was shoved into the limelight with a folding phone, a folding PC, and a new OS. But as time moved forward, the reality of these ambitious projects turned sour.
Of the three projects, the Surface Duo did arrive in all of its Android glory. Running a Google-created OS, the Surface Duo delivered on its promise to create a foldable device made of the same premium-lineage of the Surface brand but the highlights were short-lived.
Not long after shipping, Microsoft stopped promoting the device, updates were slow to arrive, and the future of significant software updates (moving to newer versions of Android) is unknown.
But the Surface Neo was met with a different fate. The device that was going to run Microsoft’s new 10X operating system was delayed and the OS was pushed down a different path. Instead of initially be designed for dual-screened devices, Microsoft would develop 10X for single-screened experiences first and that was the end of the Surface Neo shipping anytime soon.
As we head into the spring of 2021, the plans are changing again for the OS. According to people familiar with the company’s plans, Microsoft will not be shipping Windows 10X this year and the OS as you know it today, will likely never arrive. The company has shifted resources to Windows 10 and 10X is on the back burner, for now.
For about a decade, Microsoft has been trying to modernize Windows in various ways. We have seen Windows RT, Windows 10S, and now Windows 10X. The question becomes if there really is a future for anything other than traditional Windows 10? Microsoft said during their last earnings call that there were 1.3 billion active devices are running the OS each month and with that context in mind, does there really need to be a ‘lite’ version of the OS?
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