Steven Sinofsky

We shipped it as a convertible tablet, but as a tablet.

We actually did an Intel x86-based Surface, and at the time, we called it an objection handler.

And it was to handle the objection of things you didn't like about the ARM-based Surface.

You know, like that it didn't run existing software, it wasn't compatible with old software, whatever.

And so my heart and the strategy for ARM was always to introduce this discontinuity where, look, the world is different now.

The hardware world is different now.

The usage scenarios are different now.

And portability is different.

People want better battery life.

They don't want fans.

They don't want viruses and all that other stuff.

Didn't work.

I moved down to San Francisco area to chat to founders and stuff.

And what Microsoft did was sort of basically abandon ARM for the next eight years or so and focus on the objection handler side of things.

So all the services that followed

were, in my mind, a niche product because they were just like different Intel PCs that weren't super important to me.

I mean, I had brought each one of them, but they weren't important to me.

AI introduces yet another opportunity to change that dynamic for the PC to have it be forward-looking, not backward-looking.

And I think this is an incredibly important opportunity for Microsoft and for the industry as a whole.

But the wire, it's different like it was in 2011 in that it's mobile chips and the scenarios are different.