Microsoft has a big year ahead for Xbox as it marks its 25-year milestone. After the tough decision to release more Xbox games on rival consoles two years ago, 2026 is a chance to refocus on the platform and celebrate some of Xbox’s biggest franchises. It’s also an opportunity for Microsoft to define its vision […]
Windows is in a weird spot. In its 40-year history, the operating system has weathered its fair share of missteps, but Windows 11 is testing the patience of its users in new ways. Persistent bugs, performance issues, intrusive prompts, ads, and bloatware have eroded the core Windows experience. Early system requirement decisions have also damaged […]
Developers have been comparing the strengths and weaknesses of Anthropic’s Claude Code, Anysphere’s Cursor, and Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot for months now, looking for a winner. While no individual AI coding tool manages to be the best at every task that software developers do each day, Claude Code is increasingly coming out on top for its […]
Microsoft’s library of books is so heavy that it once caused a campus building to sink, according to an unproven legend among employees. Now those physical books, journals, and reports, and many of Microsoft’s digital subscriptions to leading US newspapers, are disappearing in a shift described inside Microsoft as an “AI-powered learning experience.” Microsoft started […]
The personal computer has remained surprisingly resilient to change over the past 15 years. Apple promised a “post-PC” era with the iPad in 2010 and failed to deliver one. Smartphones even overtook laptops as the most popular device to connect to the internet a decade ago, but millions of people still kept buying PCs every […]
Microsoft has been publishing data about the gender, race, and ethnic breakdown of its employees for more than a decade. Since 2019 it’s been publishing a full diversity and inclusion report annually, and at the same time made reporting on diversity a requirement for employee performance reviews. Now it’s scrapping its diversity report and dropping […]
Microsoft is pitching a future where AI controls everything on your PC and agents go and do work for you in the background. But before the company gets there, it has to build the tools to make these systems work and convince its own developers that AI is actually capable of achieving these big promises. […]
It feels like Microsoft is blindly racing toward another Windows 8 situation. Windows 8 was arguably the most divisive release of Windows in its 40-year history, as Microsoft attempted to overhaul the operating system for a touch-first future. Spooked by the iPad, the company shipped a radical overhaul that ditched the familiar Start menu and […]
Valve has created a PC-based game console that lives under your TV. The Steam Machine takes everything that’s great about the Steam Deck and adds the raw power to compete with the latest PlayStation and Xbox consoles. It also puts a huge amount of pressure on Microsoft to perfect its Windows and Xbox combination, as […]
Outlook users have only just got over the webification of Microsoft’s email client in recent years, and already there are major changes on the horizon. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell me that the company recently reorganized its Outlook team under new leadership with a focus on rebuilding the email client for the AI era. […]