Microsoft 2017 in review: Wins, fails, and WTF moments

We gained the Surface Laptop and the Fall Creators Update. We lost Windows Phone and Groove.

Microsoft’s 2017 may as well be known as the year the company turned away from the consumer and, sadly, back toward the enterprise.

This past year was notable for two casualties: Microsoft’s phone business finally died, as did Groove Music, the music subscription service that Microsoft abandoned in favor of Spotify. In fact, you could argue that Microsoft’s software and services didn’t succeed nearly as well as its hardware, where a new generation of Surfaces and Xbox One consoles were generally well received.

But ennui clouded all but the brightest spots in Microsoft’s roadmap: the Surface Laptop, Surface Book 2, and the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. It didn’t help that management seemed to feel that staid enterprise Azure and Office 365 represented Microsoft’s future, either. Now, question marks hang over Microsoft’s plans for 2018. The spark is there, but will consumers care?

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https://www.pcworld.com/article/3243258/microsoft-year-in-review-2017.html