In this article, I'm continuing our journey through the last 30 years of anything related to CODE. We're starting to arrive in a reasonably modern era. In fact, when I researched some of the background information for this article, I was continuously surprised that some of these things were a decade ago. Some of the topics discussed in this article seem like they happened “just the other day.” I even still have some of the games and movies from 10 years ago on my “to be watched/played” list. Wow!
Operating Systems
Let's start our exploratory trip through time with the generation of operating systems in use. For Microsoft, things did not go particularly well a decade ago. In 2012, Microsoft released Windows 8, and oh boy! Where do I start? I remember attending BUILD 2012 at Microsoft. And when I say, “at Microsoft,” I really mean “on the Microsoft campus in Redmond,” because that particular event was held on location at Microsoft headquarters. As far as I know, this was the only event of this size (over 5,000 people) that was ever held on campus and there really wasn't enough meeting space for it. Microsoft put up tents to house part of the event, including all the large sessions, such as the keynotes.
The event itself was highly anticipated, because Microsoft had already been on the back foot for a while, starting to slip badly in operating system market share (both Apple and Linux had turned out to be feisty competitors) and having completely lost its previously strong position in the mobile phone space (with Apple and Android dominating). Therefore, the release of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 had been anticipated with both excitement and trepidation.
There was trepidation because, during the beta phases of Windows 8, the new version of Microsoft's flagship product hadn't been received well. Windows 7 had been a great operating system that was well received on the desktop platform, but Apple's iPad had been eating Microsoft's lunch as more and more desktop users were successfully lured into the tablet space. Microsoft had nothing to put up against it. (Neither did Google, as Android on tablets was a niche market and remains so to this day). Previously, Microsoft had Tablet PCs, which were very interesting devices, but never made it quite to the level of polish that the iPad had to offer. Although some laptops had tablet features, they were clearly a PC with some tablet capabilities, rather than a highly polished tablet offering.
Windows 8 was Steven Sinofsky's idea of taking the fight to Apple. (Steven Sinofsky, a Microsoft veteran, oversaw Windows 8 within Microsoft.) The idea was to change the user experience to be more touch-friendly, which included a simplified app environment, full-screen operations, swipe gestures, and many similar concepts. All good ideas, it would seem. However, the implementation was such that it still couldn't compete with Apple's offerings (at the end of the day, Windows still ran PCs and not tablets) while at the same time completely ruining the desktop experience. Not only was the start menu overly dumbed down for desktop users, but to the great befuddlement of just about anyone, Microsoft had removed the Start-button that had become synonymous with Windows. This led to even experienced users sitting in front of their computer not knowing how to launch applications or bring up the Start screen (Figure 1).
Microsoft realized that most Windows applications were not easily usable in touch-mode. Therefore, a new UI paradigm with new applications was needed. Microsoft's answer was WinRT apps. These applications were simplified apps that were reasonably operable in tablet mode, but mostly laughable for desktop apps. This, in itself, would not have been a big issue if WinRT apps had simply been available for tablet users as an added benefit, or perhaps secondary modes of conventional applications. Instead, Microsoft made the questionable decision to try to shove these apps out to all users equally, which was not well received. These apps were just too simple. They were always in full-screen mode. Many users quipped that Windows 8 should have really been called “Window 8” (singular) because only one window could be opened at a time.
In short: WinRT apps were not a success and most companies that invested into WinRT development gave up on those efforts sooner or later, often having to write off a great deal of investment in the process.
Windows App Store
Microsoft had more tricks up its sleeve. A major new feature in Windows 8 was the new Windows App Store. After all, Apple, Google, and even Valve, had made their stores popular and successful, and Microsoft had no equivalent offering, a situation that was bizarre, to say the least. After all, the Windows ecosystem represents the largest operating system platform in the world, yet there was no standardized way to sell and deploy applications for it. Low-hanging fruit, one would think, and Microsoft seemed to agree and introduced the first built-in Windows App Store in Windows 8 (Figure 2).
Unfortunately, the list of odd decisions made around Windows 8 continued in the App Store. It was hard to find and navigate. (The search feature could only be brought up with a swipe-gesture or by hitting Windows-Q to bring up the “Charms Bar” and then picking the external search-feature there, to name just one strange interface choice that can be used for “how to not design a UI” training classes.) It's hard to describe how awkward all of this was. But worst of all, the Windows App Store only supported the new WinRT apps, which very few people had any interest in. This seemed a strange decision to me at the time, and it seems even stranger now. Microsoft made an app store for the world's largest platform yet only made it available to this new type of app, completely ignoring the millions of existing apps that could have been deployed through this system to literally billions of users. Even Microsoft's own applications, such as the desktop version of Office, were not available.
It truly was a strange time. And that gets us right back to the BUILD conference mentioned at the top of this article: Here we were, sitting in a huge tent on the Microsoft campus, waiting for Steven Sinofsky's keynote, hoping Microsoft would pull a rabbit out of its hat. Instead, we learned just before the start of the event that Sinofsky had been removed from his position and was going to leave Microsoft. It made for an awkward keynote delivered by someone else (probably Steven Balmer, although I don't even remember), and it left many of us distraught and worried. Perhaps saying that the situation was “strange” is quite an understatement. Without looking up the exact numbers, I'd guess that Steven Sinofsky presided over one of the largest destructions of brand value in the history of capitalism.
Microsoft managed to put out a slightly better version with Windows 8.1 a year later, but the damage was done, and it took a long time to recover from it.
Windows Phone
Luckily, it wasn't all about Windows 8. After all, Microsoft was also about to release Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8.1 a few months later (Figure 3). Microsoft had been an early leader in mobile devices with products like Windows CE and Windows Mobile, but had fallen far behind in the mobile race, largely due to Steve Balmer's misguided belief that business phones needed a physical keyboard. (The same assumption also eventually sunk RIM's BlackBerry product line). Meanwhile, Apple had done an excellent job establishing the iPhone and Google provided a popular alternative with Android. Microsoft was nowhere and Windows Phone 8 was to change that.
In hindsight, the Windows Phone platform was actually quite good on a technical level. The tile-based interface worked reasonably well on a phone and provided a number of features that neither Apple nor Google had. On top of that, the soft keyboard the operating system provided was clearly the best keyboard available (although not comparable to modern, AI-driven keyboards). However, the effort ultimately proved to be too little, too late. Although the other two platforms had a very healthy application ecosystem, Microsoft started from scratch. Efforts to entice the most popular app makers to create apps for the Windows Phone platform ended up with little to show for it. Yes, many of the most important apps were available on Windows Phone, but they were clearly low-budget productions that ticked a lot of boxes, but just weren't as good as on other platforms, and users noticed that they weren't getting quite the same experience on their Windows Phone as their friends with iPhones and Android Phones got. Especially once you moved past the most obvious big-hitter apps, it was clear that most smaller app offerings were only available for iPhone and Android, and Windows Phone users often found themselves out of luck.
It was a shame, but in hindsight, it was an unwinnable proposition. The commitment and financial investment required to be competitive was simply too large, even for Microsoft. One hope was that the platform could provide features that would turn the phone into more of a real computer, with the capability to hook the phone to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, never went anywhere. I liked the idea of having a full computer in my pocket (after all, the performance of those devices was similar to recent computers at the time) but I can only speculate that Microsoft didn't want the phone to cannibalize its desktop operating system.
And let's not even dwell on what was the Microsoft Kin, the “phone aimed at 15-30 year old users.” It boggles the mind how that could have ever been considered a coherent target audience. (My 30-year-old self was rather a bit different from my 15-year-old self, it seems.) Microsoft sunk billions into that endeavor that was so utterly devoid of success, they pulled the plug on the product within two months. If you don't remember the Kin, don't fret! You didn't miss anything.
Microsoft vs. the Rest of the World
Meanwhile, Microsoft's competitors were having a field-day. Apple kept pushing full speed ahead and enjoyed major success with three different product lines (among smaller additional ones): Mac, iPhone, and iPad. iOS 7 was a major overhaul that simplified the user interface of the phone in a way that's still familiar to iOS users today. Mac OS X Mavericks was a very popular version of Mac OS X. Phones and iPads were still improving their hardware platforms with meaningful upgrades. Similarly, Google's Android OS released version 4.x (Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, and KitKat… yes, those were really the names) that rapidly iterated on performance and graphics improvements, better graphics, and many new features.
The app stores on these platforms had already grown to feature an enormous number of applications and established a world of mobile devices that we still enjoy today.
On the server, Linux continued to be popular. We weren't quite there yet, but Microsoft would soon announce that Linux was fully supported on Microsoft Azure Cloud, a development few saw coming at the time. However, this was the start of a new way of approaching the world for Microsoft, based on the leadership of Satya Nadella, the new Microsoft CEO as of 2014. Nadella had succeeded Steven Balmer, the polarizing Bill Gates successor and CEO of Microsoft, who probably had just made a few too many mistakes around Windows and Windows Phone. Where history does not appear to be kind to Balmer and Sinofsky, Nadella would go on to turn Microsoft around and back to the success story it previously was. Satya Nadella is still at the helm of Microsoft today and is highly regarded and respected in this role.
Software Development and Other Tech Trends
All of the technologies and goings-on described above had a significant impact on the world of software development. Microsoft enabled developers to write apps for the ill-fated WinRT platform. However, because much of this had no longevity, it had little overall impact in the long run. Other important technologies, such as ASP.NET MVC, were stable and had been around for a while. Ignoring the short-lived tech, I look back at this as a time of relative stability for Microsoft developers, even though it may not have seemed like it at the time. Even on other platforms, that seems to be true. Apple, for instance, hadn't quite released its new Swift programming language yet (this happened in 2014), so most apps were still built on the awfully outdated Objective-C language. Also, web developers will likely recognize frameworks such as Angular that were already in use back then.
With all that said, and with all the lack of success around Windows 8 and Windows Phone, Microsoft also had some initiatives that were highly successful. It had become obvious that the Cloud was here to stay, and that Microsoft was a key player in that together with Amazon. Microsoft was starting to realize that a successful cloud platform couldn't exclusively focus on Windows and that Linux was a pretty good way to run web apps. And why wouldn't Microsoft want to make money that way, if many developers enjoyed that approach?
This had far-reaching implications. For instance, the .NET platform was exclusively designed for Windows. Furthermore, it was designed for a world of on-premises servers and desktop applications and not for data center operations and microservices. Therefore, ideas had started to germinate around creating versions of .NET that could run on Linux servers and in much smaller and more efficient packages. These ideas took a while to make it to market and were nowhere to be seen yet (at least in public), but they would later materialize as .NET Core 3.1 (in 2016).
A decade ago is also when we started seeing some interesting tech developments, such as the rise of Big Data and modern machine learning setups. We also saw the introduction of wearable devices. Oculus had just shipped its first Oculus Rift Development Kit, and Apple wasn't too far from releasing the first Apple Watch (not the iWatch, as many had assumed it would be called). IoT (Internet of Things) had grown in importance and we saw the first super-inexpensive devices, such as the first Raspberry Pi.
Politics, Music, Movies, and Games
What else was going on ten years ago? In politics, Barack Obama had just been re-elected for a second term, and Edward Snowden had been chased to Russia, after disclosing what was going on inside the NSA. Pope Francis was elected. The war in Syria was going on, with ISIS starting to emerge. And Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. The Arab Spring blew through much of the Arab world, leading to wide-spread hope for modernization. In hindsight, not much of it materialized.
On a happier note, the music industry had stabilized from the earlier Napster turmoil. Taylor Swift released her album “Red” and “1989” relatively soon thereafter. Yes, she already was a big deal then. I don't recall this period as one that produced a ton of classics (some might disagree), although who would forget “Gangnam Style,” which became an absolute viral phenomenon. I just watched the original Gangnam Style video, and it still makes my foot tap and smile at the absurdity of it all 😃.
Meanwhile, the gaming industry kept churning out one timeless classic after another. Diabolo III, Mass Effect 3 (Figure 4), Borderlands 2, Grand Theft Auto V (Figure 5), BioShock Infinite, Destiny, Dragon Age: Inquisition - do I need to go on? Wow! Just wow! Some of my fondest gaming memories are in these games right there. Personally, I spent far more hours than I'm willing to admit in the fictitious game worlds of Mass Effect, GTAV, and Dragon Age. I would call it the “golden age of gaming,” except there were so many other golden ages of gaming too. My hat's off for what the gaming industry has been able to do in the entire 30 years I cover in this series of articles.
A lot of my gaming happened on the PC. Yes, I had an Xbox One (Figure 6), a good device, although I liked the earlier Xbox 360 better for its time, and PlayStation 4 was certainly an awesome device. Wii U had some interesting stuff for a somewhat niche market. Nevertheless, the PC had shown time and time again how much staying power it had, and many more gaming performance enthusiasts could extract from that set up, a statement that's been true in pretty much every decade that this 30-year journey covers, and it's true to this day. Nevertheless, the ease of use of gaming consoles should also not be overlooked in pushing the gaming industry forward.
This exploration of the past three decades in everything connected to CODE is advancing into what could be considered the contemporary era. In preparing for this piece, I found myself repeatedly astonished to realize that certain events took place a decade ago. Many subjects covered here feel as though they occurred only recently.
Although I don't miss Windows 8 or the ill-fated WinRT application platform, I do feel oddly compelled to start up some of those “old” games. Perhaps I'll do so before I start writing the next installment of this series of articles, which will bring us to just five short years ago. Until then!
