14 DAY TRIAL // Joe Belfiore, the one who most Microsoft fans know as the man behind Windows Phone (although he had some other responsibilities as well), is back at Microsoft and he’s in charge of something totally different from what he was doing before his 1-year holiday.
Belfiore, who officially returned to Microsoft one month ago, will handle the consumer-focused Windows Shell, according to a report from Thurrott, and will be reporting directly to Terry Myerson, who is in charge of the operating system division at the company.
And while seeing Belfiore back at the software firm is good news since he’s a true Microsoft man in all regards, his new job might involve activities whose outcome might actually become very frustrating for Windows 10 users.
The source notes that Belfiore’s main responsibility is to “find new ways to make money with Windows 10,” mostly because the traditional licensing model that the operating system is still using is losing ground.
More “tips,” anyone?
In case you’re wondering what this means, “new ways to make money” could represent “a way to introduce more advertising directly into Windows,” as the source puts it, and this is a thing that Microsoft has been doing since the official debut of the operating system.
Microsoft calls these ads “tips” or “suggestions,” and while it gives some options to disable them, we’ve seen more and more complaints from users who are annoyed with getting all kinds of recommendations to switch from third-party to Microsoft apps. Edge browser is one of the apps that Microsoft is promoting with these tips, and most recently, users have started seeing popups coming out from the browser icon in the taskbar.
It goes without saying that more ads in Windows 10 cannot be good news for Windows 10 consumers, so Joe Belfiore might actually have a harder job than before. Finding a way to make money with Windows 10 without actually causing frustration in the Windows community will certainly be a tough challenge.