What big news did Microsoft make yesterday?

Yesterday was a very special day for people like me who have been following Microsoft news for a long time. Microsoft had several major announcements, all of which were unveiled at the WinHEC conference in Shenzhen. Compared to the completely stunned Chinese people, foreign technology media obviously have not fully felt the impact that these news have brought to the market.

Let’s briefly sort it out:

1. Windows 10 will be released globally this summer. Lenovo has signed a contract to pre-install Windows 10 on all its devices, and may provide a "silent upgrade" to users of genuine Win 7 or above.

2. Microsoft, 360 and Tencent are partners in pushing Win 10 upgrades to Chinese pirated users. Users who have 360 ​​Security Guard or Tencent PC Manager installed on their computers will be able to get the upgrade directly. Those who don't have any can also download a special assistant provided by Tencent to upgrade. Pirated users will get the official upgrade package for free;

3. The upgrade package for pirated users will be pre-installed with QQ, Tencent Video, and Tencent PC Manager, and the browser homepage will be set to 360 Navigation;

4. According to what I know, Microsoft will only provide one upgrade package to the two major partners, instead of pre-installing 360 for 360 and pre-installing Tencent for Tencent. This means that users who upgrade 360 ​​Security Guard will face the situation of coexistence of 360 Security Guard and Tencent PC Manager on their computers after the upgrade is completed;

5. Genuine users can upgrade normally through Windows Update channel and get a pure new version of the system;

6. Xiaomi Mi 4 will be able to be flashed with Windows 10. As this is an Android phone with a popular architecture, TechCrunch believes that the attempt to flash the phone will be extended to all other Android phones. Microsoft will be able to use the good distribution of Android phones in the market to "stealthily" flash Android to Windows according to user preferences, and increase the installation rate in minutes;

7. Tencent announced that its large-scale game clients will be packaged in the form of Windows 10 Apps, and the future installation method will be changed to obtain from the Windows App Store instead of downloading the x86 installer. The reason for making such a declaration is that 1) the interface regulations of Windows 10 App for games do not include Metro UI, so they can be used as they are; 2) many existing game engines already support the use of XAML programming. This means that Windows tablets and even mobile phones may also have the opportunity to install games such as "League of Legends" and "Dungeon & Warriors" (it depends on whether the application will be made Universal).

8. The boundary between PC and Xbox will become more blurred. We already know that Windows 10 allows video streaming of Xbox games, but if Xbox wants to run Windows games, it may just install them directly. For example, in the case of League of Legends, Tencent only needs to figure out how to map mouse and keyboard operations to touch screen and handle operations, which is equivalent to removing the biggest obstacle to full platform porting.

The above measures of Microsoft will have a far-reaching impact on the entire market. It is not entirely aimed at Chinese consumers, but more at Chinese developers. China is already one of the regions with the most developers contributing to the Windows App Store. In the development of Windows 8 Apps within the Microsoft team, the Chinese team is also one of the best. Their internal project Xiaoyu Weather is an example.

According to the current publicity, the two points of "write once and run everywhere" and the possibility that some Android users may switch to the new version have already formed a huge temptation for developers. If the layout is realized, the market share of Windows platforms will jump sharply from the current 1% that is despised in half a year. Developers should indeed plan for this as soon as possible to seize a new market under the old model.

***It should be pointed out that the upgrade assistants of 360 and Tencent*** are only available for Windows 7. For XP users, seamless installation may not be possible, but a fresh installation after restarting is also possible. If there are corporate or official machines that you do not want to upgrade, please be careful not to use the security software of these two companies during that period. The corporate IT department should make deployments as early as possible and control important machines on the intranet to avoid connecting to the external network. Microsoft does not sell operating systems to large customers, but provides a package solution for all IT needs within the enterprise, of course including the maintenance of old systems including XP. Customers who already have such solutions need to keep in close contact with Microsoft and be ready to seek their technical support at any time.