Pavan Davuluri

Having lived and been a part of the Surface team myself for a good period of time,

If a core element of our Surface product making in itself is to be able to create value through Surface that is of impact and contribution for the entire Windows user base and themselves, the entire Windows ecosystem, I have found that it has been helpful both for the Windows team itself, but also for the entire ecosystem.

The simplest examples I go back to in the arc of time

are building technologies around pen adoption, for example, for us, where the Surface team built a lot of the core user interaction experience, a lot of the core technologies that really made the Windows team think deeply about the end-to-end user experience from the firmware that's on the pen to end-to-end latency, to what does the user experience look like, to how pen and ink usage is adopted into apps in themselves.

And that in turn created a flywheel for us on how should we think about pen and inking in Windows more broadly.

That in turn helped us with the pen and inking adoption with the app developers, as well as with our ecosystem partners, our IHV partners, our OEMs.

And so that's one example that stands out for me is that it is a journey that took some time.

Same thing was true for Windows Hello when we decided to move the space for biometrics and how customers can just simply log in and get biometric support.

A lot of the work that we did in Surface was in service of Windows and broader ecosystem as well.

The same is happening for us with AI as well.

Surface provided us, I feel like, with the core leadership that we needed when we were introducing the line of Copilot Plus PCs in themselves.

We did a lot of the innovation associated with what the silicon platform architectures needed to look like and what primitives the operating system needed to support.

And so I feel like Surface Team continues to play this critical heartbeat role for us, for helping us think about a system stack and what has to be true across the entire system.

And the thing that we pride ourselves for is the design and craftsmanship of Surface.

So for us, the DNA of attention to detail and making sure whether it is friction on the hinge, the quality of the display, the industrial design and the geometry of the product, the color material finishes that we choose, they are, in my mind, an expression of Windows and certainly an expression of Microsoft.

And so we feel pride in making sure we are thinking through all those details as a team.

Absolutely.

I think it's a place where I think we have a unique responsibility with Surface and an opportunity for the broader Windows ecosystem.

Windows as a product has gone through several phases of evolution, I think.

And oftentimes, actually, I should start with this week we're celebrating the 40th anniversary of Windows.