Microsoft CFO Offers Insights on Windows Plans

Talks up a unified experience across all devices. Boy that sounds familiar.

Apple chief Tim Cook wasn't the only tech executive speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference, as you'd expect. Microsoft CFO Peter Klein was another featured guest and he had some pretty interesting comments.

Klein's talk was to outline where Redmond is headed in the next few years, usually the sort of thing a CEO would lay out. Maybe I'm reading too much into that, since Klein has only been on the job two years.

Anyway, the main emphasis, he told Goldman Sachs analyst Heather Bellini, will be cross-platform. "What we're trying to do is develop a complete set of experiences across all device types, be they TV, tablets, PCs, phone, whatever. It's unclear exactly what the ultimate device spectrum will be. In everything that we're doing I think things have come together very nicely over the last couple of years."

That certainly reflects in Microsoft's roadmap, which seems to have a whole lot of major products all on track to ship late this year: Windows 8, Windows Server 8, Visual Studio 2012, and Windows Phone "Apollo." A new Xbox is expected some time next year but that's all just rumors for now.

Klein confirmed that Skype would be a part of multiple Microsoft products. he said it would be integrated into Office the same way Sharepoint was integrated, and added "Skype really extends that across all of our assets, whether it's with Lync in the enterprise, or with Xbox Live.  I think that's something that really ties together all of our devices with a scenario that's probably as universal as any."

Skype and Lync, Microsoft's software for corporate phone systems, will "amplify each other," as he put it. "Lync is limited to inside the firewall ... Skype extends that to everyone you want to communicate with."

He said Microsoft will be listening to all of the feedback when it releases the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on Feb. 29. Klein said the company plans to listen to consumers, developers, and "influentials."

In discussing ARM vs. Intel, Klein said there will be differences "on the margin" but that by and large, the experience will be "consistent across the form factors." He said legacy apps won't run on Windows on ARM, which is pretty much a given for compiled x86 code, but that apps will "most likely" be rewritten for ARM if they are important to the company.

I disagree with him on the experiences being the same between ARM and x86, but will save that for next Monday.

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