Silicon Valley, Conway’s law, and the future of Windows

It’s hard, and possibly a little unwise, to discern the future of the Windows platform entirely from Microsoft’s recent reorg, but I’d like to give it a shot.

As tools in this vision quest, I’m going to use episode two of the latest season of HBO’s hit show Silicon Valley, Satya Nadella’s company-wide memo explaining the Microsoft reorg, and the Wikipedia entry on Conway’s law.

Here’s my thesis: as Windows development separates into “platform” and “experiences” teams, Windows itself will start to look like a union of “platform” and “experiences,” unlike the currently monolithic-seeming OS I use to play video games.

I was inspired to think this way by Satya Nadella’s own hypertext:

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