Windows 10 roadmap promises a lot
As Microsoft continues to court businesses and encourage them to upgrade to Windows 10, the company has taken the novel step of publishing a roadmap of Windows 10 features. This roadmap describes business-oriented features that are coming to Windows 10. Some, such as biometric authentication in the Edge browser, have already been announced as part of the forthcoming Anniversary Update and are currently available in the Insider Preview.
But others are not. While some are so vague as to tell us nothing—the Passport API used for biometric authentication is being "enhanced" to improve enterprise functionality—other features are rather more concrete. Microsoft plans to add device-based PC unlocking, wherein Windows and Android phones can be used to store authentication credentials, and the feature can be used to both unlock the PC and authenticate apps and services that use Windows Hello and the Passport API.
The same is also being enabled for what Microsoft calls "Companion devices" that integrate with a new API called the "Companion Device Framework." The Microsoft Band 2 fitness device will plug into this framework, and third-party devices will also be able to join in.
Windows 10 Mobile's Continuum feature that allows a phone to drive a big screen, mouse, and keyboard and provide a more PC-like style of user interaction is also being extended. It will add support for touch-screen monitors and laptop-style docks such as the Nexdock, potentially increasing the range of situations in which it's useful. Microsoft is also adding a generalized casting ability, allowing a Continuum phone to cast to a PC (rather than requiring its own dedicated screen, mouse, and keyboard), a Windows 10 PC to cast to another PC, and a Windows 10 headless Internet-of-Things device to also present an interface onto a PC or phone. Reading between the lines a little, this is presumably an extension of the Miracast capability already present in Windows 10, enabling a Windows 10 system to receive and display a Miracast transmission, as well as send its own.
In some ways, however, the most interesting part of the roadmap page is not what it says about upcoming Windows 10 features. Rather, it's the inclusion of a (currently empty) section named "Canceled." The mere existence of this section opens up an interesting possibility: that Microsoft might plan features that it doesn't deliver, or at least, has to go back to the drawing board and redesign or reposition them. This, in turn, suggests that Microsoft might be opening up a little about what it's doing with Windows and what its future plans are.
If this comes to pass, it marks an enormous shift in attitudes from a company that for a decade or so has been more than a little gun-shy when it comes to talking about the future. After the Windows Longhorn fiasco, where Microsoft promised an exotic new file system, a migration to .NET-based APIs for all development, a completely different user interface, and the moon on a stick—little of which ultimately made its way to consumers—Microsoft tends to be quite secretive about its future plans. It publicizes only those features that it's extremely confident will ship on time. Better to under-promise and over-deliver than the reverse.
We saw some early signs that the company was to be a bit more forward-looking in 2014. The publication of this roadmap, and its apparent space for features that might not make the cut after all, suggests that the company may be relaxing a little more.
Microsoft has a tough job ahead if the company wants to get businesses to adopt Windows 10, with its continuously updated "Windows-as-a-Service" development process representing a particular challenge to organizations that would stick with Windows XP, if only it were safe to do so. Opening up about its future plans and development trajectory feels like a necessary step if the company is to reassure enterprises that getting on the upgrade treadmill is going to provide meaningful benefits.
But to do that effectively means being open to the possibility that not all planned features will pan out.
There's sure to be continued skepticism about the value of adopting Windows 10, as it represents a big shift in development approach and deployment. A more open Microsoft won't be enough to swing the decision completely, but it certainly helps make the case that making the upgrade is going to be increasingly beneficial.