Jerret West, the former Vice President/Head of Marketing at Netflix APAC (Asia Pacific region) is coming back at Microsoft as Chief Marketing Officer for Xbox. The news was shared on Twitter earlier today by Xbox watcher Klobrille, and it’s interesting for several reasons.

Jerret West, Former Vice President/Head of Marketing at Netflix, rejoins Microsoft as Chief Marketing Officer at Xbox. His team develops marketing plans for games, hardware & services (Game Pass) across the division.

Thanks to Ging-Sama for the tip. https://t.co/7zmW7BY9q7 pic.twitter.com/QL7iNI5mmv

— Klobrille (@klobrille) January 24, 2020

First of all, Xbox is very familiar territory for West who worked there for 8 years between 2003 and 2011, including three years as Director of marketing. At this time, West was in charge of the worldwide marketing for the Xbox LIVE subscriptions business. In this interview from 2010, you can hear him discuss new social media applications (including Netflix) coming to the Xbox 360.

Now more than ever, Microsoft has become a huge services company, with Xbox Game Pass now clearly overshadowing the still valuable Xbox Live Gold subscription. Xbox Game Pass has often been described in the press as the “Netflix of video games,” so it’s quite significant to see a Netflix marketing exec being tasked of marketing Xbox Game Pass and the overall Xbox business. According to West’s LinkedIn profile, he’s currently responsible for “a 200 person global team and over half a billion dollars in marketing spend.”

West started his new marketing role at Xbox in December, but the news had gone pretty much unnoticed. Until now, Aaron Greenberg, General Manager, Xbox Games Marketing was one of the main public faces of Xbox, along with Director of Xbox Programming Larry Hryb aka “Major Nelson,” as well as Xbox head Phil Spencer. West comes back at a very interesting time for Xbox with the upcoming launch of Xbox Series X, and we hope the team has learned all the lessons from the disastrous Xbox One launch seven years ago.

The new version of Microsoft Edge that the company released last week brings full support for Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), just like Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers. This means that Edge should now be able to identify PWAs when you’re browsing the web, and display an “Install” button to make PWAs open in a separate window without the browser UI.

Last month, Microsoft introduced coloured title bars for PWAs in the Edge Canary channel, making these web apps look even more native. The Edge team now wants to go even further and implement title bar customisations for PWAs, as it was explained on GitHub earlier this week (via NextImpact).

As the Edge team pointed out, the PWA Title bar area is currently system reserved, and can’t be customized like it is in many popular apps. However, the team proposed a solution to circumvent this limitation, including a standards-based way for developers to define which areas of their content within title bar should be treated as draggable.

The team provided a image of what a PWA with a customizable title bar would look like, and this example includes a Search Bar.

The Edge team explained that its proposal “do not pose considerable privacy concerns other than feature detection,” but the team would like to work the community to better understand how to implement title tar customization options for PWAs in Chromium. For Microsoft, one the main purposes of the switch to Chromium for Edge was to be able to suggest new features that could benefit all Chromium-based browsers, and we’re glad to see the Edge team coming up with good ideas for improving PWA support.

Up until recently, Microsoft’s Windows development team has been rather cagey about the details on the upcoming evolution of the company’s flagship operating system, so creative graphic and UI designers have rushed to fill the void of anticipation with their own takes on how the company can advance the platform visually and functionally.

Thanks to a few high-level mentions that include @Daniel_Rubino and @tomwarren, we’ve seen a recent Twitter thread posted by @zeealeid who is a self-proclaimed “tech geek who knows a bit about design” surfaced and offered, yet another visual perspective of where the Windows development and UX team could put some design focus on subsequent updates to the platform.

@zeealeid focuses on transforming the current Windows Update settings and prompts with a much more robust display of information to presumably walk users through the update process while also giving them finer controls over when and what gets updated in Windows.

[Thread] Here's a redesigned Windows Update page. It has a new layout and gives you more control over the updates.

Thoughts? ?#fluentdesign @MicrosoftDesign #fluentfriday @MichaelGillett @zacbowden @Daniel_Rubino @tomwarren @Niels9001 #WindowsUpdate pic.twitter.com/JbeGaiooHR

— Zee-Al-Eid Ahmad Rana (@zeealeid) January 23, 2020

Diving further, @zeealeid also pins a few more shots detailing a proposed update process in his vision of a new Windows 10 update setting that includes, the ability to customize which bits are actually installed, set up of Windows update scans, detailed updates page, updated progress, and ETA visuals, as well as taskbar and new Start Menu prompts.

As with all design concepts, there is a bit of fantasy that runs askew of actual engineering but @zeealeid’s concepts seem thoroughly thought through and considerate of relatively realistic design goals that can be taken up by the Windows UI and UX team.

A little over 24 hours ago, an update to Windows 10 SDK was released with support for dual screens and hints at what might be coming down the pipe with Windows 10X and since then videos have surfaced showcasing what users might come to expect from the updated platform.

So far, the videos only tease a handful of application functionality, but the Windows Start experience displayed in the teases looks very similar to that from several fan-made concepts, so there is some hope that the Windows team may be aligning their updated UI with that of some more outstanding concept designs from its fan community.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced an emulator for the Surface Duo. In a blog post, the company described how developers can use it to their advantage to create apps for the upcoming dual-screen device that can “delight people in a new and innovative way.” Since then, many publications have gone hands-on with it, from Rich Woods at Neowin to Windows Central’s Zac Bowden.

After watching demo videos of the emulator, and a video where it was superimposed over an actual Surface Duo, I can’t but help to agree with Microsoft. The Surface Duo emulator definitely is delightful and is providing a hopeful peek at the future of Android on the Surface Duo. Here’s why.

Microsoft Launcher looks beautiful and works more fluently in a dual-screen situation.

We already know that Microsoft Launcher will be powering Surface Duo. An early preview version for standard Android phones provided a look at what things could shape up to be. However, this new emulator is the first time that we’ve seen Microsoft Launcher and the overall user interface of Surface Duo in action on a simulated dual-screen setup. Compared to what Samsung has done with its One UI on the Galaxy Fold, it’s downright fluent and beautiful.

In the demo videos, we can see the redesigned Microsoft Launcher Activity screen on the left, and the standard home screen on the right screen. It’s clean, and the card interface makes much sense and can help increase your productivity on a large dual-screen device. The Activity feed provides information at a quick glance, and you can still see and access your home Android screen on the right. Android’s task manager also only appears on just one display and allows you to choose more apps as you need them — and drag across the screen as needed.

The animation to dismiss the Activity Feed itself is also clean, and the full Android home screen “slides” in a bit, in an efficient way. You even have access to up to 6 apps on the “dock.” (That’s three on each screen when extended to dual-screen and all six on one screen when multitasking) I’ve never quite seen anything this seamless and beautiful before, and I believe there’s a lot of hope here for Surface Duo being used as a productivity device or tablet.

Even more so, Microsoft Launcher on this emulator is consistent with what we’ve seen on Android 10. Android’s card-style app switcher never made more sense. It gives you a “live” look at the app as it was last paused, regardless of which of the two screens its open on. This, too, has the potential for helping boost your productivity, as you can see an all apps how you last left it while switching.

Stock Android apps on Surface Duo look to be clean and efficient

Another point to note with this emulator is the way how Stock Android apps themselves would work on the Surface Duo. While the Google Play Store doesn’t appear (and isn’t compatible) this emulator, we know that Microsoft is urging developers to code apps for the dual-screen format. Apps can span into an  “extended canvas,” “two page,” “dual,” and “companion pane.” mode. Though, as we see, the single-screen view is the default.

In context – this feels even more magical. pic.twitter.com/8yLLoioE1K

— Jonas Daehnert (@PhoneDesigner) January 22, 2020

Microsoft has obviously put a lot of thought into this, and it’s downright beautiful. For instance, at the 1-minute mark in the video above, we see for the first time outside a promotional video how a Stock Android app can be spanned across the two-screens. It’s held in the middle seam of the device, and then “opens” up like a book, giving you access to it on both the left and right screens. There’s even a neat animation for that, too.

In Neowin’s video, we even see how apps can be “stacked” side by side It’s a small touch, but it’s really delightful, to say the least. The design of Android apps have been known to suck on big-screen tablets, and even on Chrome OS, but Microsoft is changing that. The company is showing developers how their standard apps can be useful for multi-tasking on a dual-screen and even the larger tablet screen.

This is all why Surface Duo (hopefully) won’t end up like Windows Phone

As these videos just show an SDK and emulator, there are many things that could change. Some apps in the SDK and emulator don’t launch side by side and there are limits. However, Microsoft appears to have learned its lesson from Windows Phone. Microsoft is pushing out an Android phone, which has support for millions of apps. It’s also pushing developers to support  SS primitives for dual-screen layouts, the JavaScript Window Segments Enumeration API, and even is helping make PWAs compatible with dual-screen devices. The company means business and it wants to work with developers and help get them on board the dual-screen party, and it’s great.

The core of Microsoft’s fiscal portfolio still centers around a company that can effectively license software and services but over the past few years, the business has been navigating its way to revenue ambitions as broad as the clouds in the sky.

For anyone who may not have been paying attention to one of the largest players in the tech industry over the past five or so years, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella succinctly puts in to view the company’s recent half-decade strategy to service 46 billion endpoints (devices including IoT sensors), at a media event earlier this week.

The Verge’s Tom Warren recounts the event and Nadella’s words as an opportunity for Microsoft to make a case for its place among, what the company believes, is the next big wave of intermingled users’ experiences powered by the rapid growth of IoT sensors and “simple” devices.

The way I look at it is Windows is the billion user install base of ours. We continue to add a couple of hundred million PCs every year, and we want to serve that in a super good way,” explained Nadella. “The thing that we also want to think about is the broader context. We don’t want to be defined by just what we achieved. We look at if there’s going to be 50 billion endpoints. Windows with its billion is good, Android with its 2 billion is good, iOS with its billion is good — but there is 46 billion more. So let’s go and look at what that 46 billion-plus 4 [billion] looks like, and define a strategy for that, and then have everything have a place under the sun.

While Nadella’s ambitions seem grandiose at the moment, considering the company has a relatively apathetic appetite for consumer-facing endeavors, market analysts tangentially support the CEO’s numeric claims.

Research and analytics firm Strategy Analytics already states that there are over 22 billion connected devices in use, and that claim was published March of 2019. However, the focus of the Strategy Analytics report was only partly the number of devices while the crux of the research focused on revenue, something Nadella and company will have to contend with as Microsoft continues to shift its business model and clashes with several industry heavyweights for market and mindshare.

Service providers may look at the vast scale of the internet of things and assume that revenues will automatically flow in their direction. But it remains to be seen precisely which applications and services will drive revenue growth, and how much. Furthermore, more research is needed to understand how this ecosystem will evolve to meet the needs of tomorrow’s consumers.

While Strategy Analytics is waiting to see which handful of ecosystems will clearly emerge to power the onslaught of IoT devices, Microsoft has been steadily building a cloud infrastructure to support not only itself in the marketplace, but its partners as well as competitors.

What do you think is the biggest hardware business at Microsoft? “Xbox,” answered a reporter who had been quizzing Nadella on how the company’s hardware products like Surface and Xbox fit into the broader ambitions of Microsoft. “No, it’s our cloud,” fired back Nadella, explaining how Microsoft is building everything from the data centers to the servers and network stack that fit inside.

Over its lifespan, Microsoft has made a business model out of acqui-hires and partnerships. But over the past five or six years and under Nadella’s tutelage, the company has been a bit more strategic with its purse strings and contracts, oftentimes making deals that on the surface, seem to go against the company’s own invested interest.

However, Microsoft has proven over time that it’s often looking beyond the minutia of in-the-moment device, service or software competition. As it turns out, the company would rather set its eyes on a sea of exponential business opportunities powered by oceans of sensory collected cloud data, and partner with friends as well as foes.

Microsoft’s next decade may be less flashy than its go-to-war years of competing directly with companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google with items like Windows Phone, Bing Search, Zune, Microsoft Band, So.cl, Cortana, Windows 10S and more. However, it’s in a much better position to capitalize on the “next big thing.”

“We are absolutely, no question, allocating a lot to what is that next big thing,” explained Nadella last week. “But at the same time, we’re also not saying that’s our way back to saying all of iOS, all of Android, and all of Windows will suddenly be subsumed by this one thing. If anything, what people have come to realize is that Windows is there with a billion users, iOS is there with a billion users, and Android is there with 2 billion users. It’s not like one killed the other.”

Judging from Nadella’s words, Microsoft’s sweet spot and ultimate end goal resides in a business model analogous to transportation, where the company becomes the purveyor of transportation infrastructure (roads, tunnels, bridges, airports) rather than the peddler to the relatively disposable means by which people (data) travels (cars, trains, boats, airplanes).

Microsoft first started talking about the Surface Neo and Duo developer story back in November, and the company is following up today by announcing dual-screen preview SDKs for Surface Neo and Windows 10. Developers can download the preview version of the Surface Duo SDK today, while the Windows 10 version will be available in the coming weeks.

“The preview SDK gives developers a first look at how you can take advantage of dual-screen experiences,” explained Kevin Gallo, CVP of Windows Developer Platform. Starting today, developers who download the SDK will have access to an Android Emulator with a preview Surface Duo image for Android Studio, as well as native Java APIs to create dual-screen experiences for Surface Duo. Microsoft has more documentation on how to create apps for dual-screen devices on this page.

While today’s announcements are software-related, Windows Central’s Zac Bowden did spot in the documents mention the dimensions of the Surface Duo displays, and the two separate screens will have a 1350×1800 resolution.

Surface Duo display dimensions. 1350×1800 for each display. pic.twitter.com/h7IPWhK5hM

— Zac Bowden (@zacbowden) January 22, 2020

If Microsoft will be pushing app developers to optimize their Android and Windows 10 apps for dual-screen devices, the software giant isn’t forgetting about web apps. Indeed, the company also announced new web standards for dual-screen layouts that web developers could implement for websites and PWAs running on both Android and Windows 10X devices. Microsoft’s Edge browser on Android, which is based on Chromium, is ready for dual-screen experiences on the web, Gallo explained today.

Microsoft will share more details about dual-screen experiences with developers during its Microsoft 365 Developer Day on February 11 at 8:30 AM PDT. This will be an online event that will be streamed on this page.

Microsoft is continuing to expand its Azure datacenter footprint, this time with its first datacenter region in Israel. The new “Israel Central” location is expected to open in 2021, and will bring the total footprint of datacenter to 56 regions among 21 countries.

In addition to offering Azure cloud infrastructure in the region, the company also plans to offer Office 365 further down the road. According to Michel van der Bel, President of Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa:

“When I speak to customers across EMEA, it is clear that the power of the cloud is essential for their competitiveness. We have made significant infrastructure investments in the region and with this announcement, our planned region in Israel will join a growing number of EMEA markets recently made available including Germany, Norway, South Africa and Switzerland. Offering Microsoft Azure and Office 365 from a datacenter region in Israel forms a key part of our investment and involvement in the startup nation, as infrastructure is an essential building block for the tech intensity that public sector entities and businesses need to embrace.”

In addition to giving many businesses and organizations data residency within their own country, Microsoft also highlights GDPR compliance as a way to give piece of mind about privacy and security.

As highlighted in the Azure blog post, the company’s investments in Israel began in 1989 with the opening of a local branch, and has also established its first R&D center outside of the U.S. in the country in 1991. The company also plans to open a Microsoft Israel campus later this year.

Microsoft also plans to open a datacenter next year in Qatar, and has also opened detacenters in Norway, Germany, and Switzerland, among others in the last year alone. The company’s continued investments in Azure are likely part of the reason why tech companies have voted more favorably for Azure as opposed to its number one rival, Amazon AWS.

Microsoft will set its Bing search engine as the default search tool in Chrome for some Office 365 ProPlus customers. Beginning in Office 365 ProPlus version 2002, the Microsoft Search in Bing will be enabled thanks to the automatic installation of the Chrome extension in beginning in February in the U.S., Canada, Australia, U.K., France, German, India, and others to follow.

Microsoft wants to give business customers easier access to Microsoft Search, a tool that allows users to find workplace documents, files, sites, tools, people, and other information along with the regular web results all in the Bing search engine. Of course, Microsoft says that employees can still choose to set another search engine as their default, should they prefer.

Of course, users who already have Bing as their default search engine won’t receive the Chrome extension installed automatically, according to Microsoft’s support page.

Multiple users on both Reddit and GitHub (via ZDNet) are rather displeased with the decision, with one users of the Microsoft-owned software hosting service calling its decision “totally unacceptable in a business environment”.

Office 365 ProPlus to change Chrome’s default search engine to Bing in upcoming update from sysadmin

Luckily, further down the document shows users how to keep the extension from being installed, by using either the Office Development tool or using a Group Policy. Users can also choose to remove the extension by entering a single command as an administrator, thereby removing Bing as the default search engine.

What do you think about Microsoft’s decision? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments area below.