14 DAY TRIAL // Panos Panay, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of devices, denied reports that the company might be planning to give up on Surface devices, calling all the recent claims just “tabloid rumors.”
Several analysts and industry experts recently expressed doubts over Microsoft’s hardware strategy, with representatives of some company partners, including Lenovo, explaining that the software giant is likely to give up on Surface at some point because such a product does not make sense for a software and cloud firm.
“Microsoft is making a lot of money on cloud, making a lot of money on Windows and Office, but losing a lot of money on devices,” said Gianfranco Lanci, Lenovo's chief operating officer, adding that the Surface could bite the dust 2019.
But as far as Panos Panay is concerned, such an idea “is so far from the truth,” pointing out that there’s no chance Microsoft steps away from hardware, not now and not anytime soon.
More than just first-party hardware
Panay emphasized that the Surface lineup isn’t a matter of Microsoft being in hardware, but a way to drive innovation in the entire ecosystem, helping partners develop new features that would eventually improve the experience with Windows 10.
The man in charge of the Surface division pointed to the Surface Pen as the living proof, explaining that Microsoft has only created the stylus and the ink support in Windows 10, while the rest of the manufacturers developed their own hardware to benefit from the new features in the operating system.
And when it comes to the sales of the Surface unit, Panos Panay pointed out that sales are not what Microsoft is most interested in and, what’s more, even though there are ups and downs, this can only serve as motivation to do better in the future.
Panay reminded of the original $900 million Surface RT write-down, adding that he didn’t notice any loss of confidence among Microsoft employees but “a real belief in how we can change the world.”