Microsoft has announced a major reshuffle in the company.
For starters they have placed Surface chief Panos Panay in charge of both Windows and hardware. With this move we are beginning to see how things will drastically change within Microsoft from here on in. As one of Panay’s new changes he has announced Amanda Langowski as the new lead for the Windows Insider Program. Langowski has worked for the company for twenty years.
She previously worked on the Windows beta programs, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, and the flighting team (this team makes sure builds of Windows are available for engineers inside and outside of Microsoft).
The Insider program sees millions of users able to Beta test windows 10 from home.
The insider program hasn’t had an official head since October 2019. It was recently headed by Dona Sarkar which has taken a new role in the Microsoft Developer Relations team. the previous Insider chief, Gabe Aul, left Microsoft last year for a virtual and augmented reality engineering role at Facebook.
This reshuffle comes as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has set a goal for the company saying
“We want to move from people needing Windows to choosing Windows, to loving Windows”.
Panay hasn’t quite finalized his vision yet but it seems like he has a strong focus on improving the windows OS for users. If the addition of PowerToys for Windows10 and Windows Terminal is anything to go by we can expect great things from the new head of this department. As well as some more subtle changes such as new icons and some changes to the start menu.
The future of Windows looks bright and we will be monitoring these changes as they unfold.