Windows leader Panos Panay is leaving Microsoft | Hacker News Reader

Windows leader Panos Panay is leaving Microsoft

theverge.com

58 pointsmeetpateltech27 comments

God help us, a marketing lead of the Windows division. As if the user experience wasn't bad enough.

Reminder: Panos Panay masterminded the Surface line from the start and its grown into a $5 billion per year business.

Here's the clip of him deliberately dropping the Surface Pro 3 live on stage in 2014

https://youtu.be/4ElGi6dclJM?si=0LpRJSse-6H0Scv_&t=1694

When I recommended my father a Surface Pro 3 back 10 years ago or so, it was also the last time when I was excited by Windows.

He loved it until buying a new laptop about a year ago.

Tell your dad to get a surface laptop 15”. His eyes will appreciate the big 3x2 display.

I'm sure he would, but when he bought his last laptop, I was only involved in setting up his software, periphery, backups etc

It's still a Windows but he said he decided against another Surface because of pricing.

Panos has also wasted years with bad decisions slowing down Windows innovation, good riddance

Apparently he's going to join Amazon to lead their Echo and Alexa hardware division: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/18/23879036/microsoft-panos-...

Makes sense since Microsoft seems to be increasingly weaning off hardware, aside from Xbox. Their hardware refreshes for the Surface lineup have been very slow and counterintuitive (e.g. what happened to the AMD-powered lineup). Uncertain how much influence Panay had but as the hardware chief for Surface, I expected more.

That sounds terrible. Surface completely altered the windows hardware landscape, and its was a joy to use. This is a remarkably poor outcome.

Just like most of the WinUI faces that used to show up on community calls since the Project Reunion started are now at Google, Amazon, or if still at Microsoft, Azure, XBox and whatever AI is doing this week.

The desktop division is currently a mess.

Being replaced by a marketing person...doesn't give me high hopes for the Windows and Surface division going forward.

hopefully a temporary transition until Windows transitions into a more modern business area like AI

They're not even pretending any more. Large swaths moving under the literal ad business, with a marketing guy in charge. Disgusting and disappointing...

Windows (on the consumer side) is a loss-leader for sales of Office.

What on earth is a "corporate vice president of modern life"

Welcome to Microsoft.

Thanks for the Surface, the best 2-in-1 for engineers ever conceived!

It's sad that Intel and Qualcomm never delivered a good enough chip for this device.

Is this the guy who took the awesomeness of Windows 7 then added a bunch of ads and redundant, slow UIs and released 10 and 11?

He didn't take over the Windows division until after 10 was released.

Gotcha.

That would be Sinfosky, .NET hater, COM and C++ worshiper.

Sinofski left after Windows 7.

Nope, get your history right, he left after Windows 8 and how it was badly received.

However since Windows 8 follows Windows 7, it was indeed after Windows 7, that much is right.

> Moving forward, we will double down on our strategy. These changes will be effective immediately with Panos’ help in the transition.

He is apparently headed to Amazon to run their Alexa division.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/18/chief-product-officer-pano...

How strange, I was just thinking that it feels like Panos would leave, but I can’t recall what suggested that.

He is a next Stephen Elop on a mission to destroy Amazon. “following Burning East-1, a brutally honest memo, AWS switching to Azure “

That's some comic book villain.

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