The article states straight up that Win32 is used in way too many applications for Microsoft to ditch it wholesale in the foreseeable future.
What they can do is tweak around the edges to make Steam perform poorly and theoretically make the Windows app store more appealing, but that got a little bit tinfoil hat for me. I won't say it's unheard of, but they've already been under investigation once for these kinds of shenanigans and it doesn't look like we're going to have a friendly administration come in to pull their feet out of the fire this time.
The new Microsoft leadership seems more interested in building bridges than in crushing and destroying companies Ballmer style, but I could be wrong. Removing win32 seems like a huge mistake both from an optics perspective and because of its impact on partners.
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The article states straight up that Win32 is used in way too many applications for Microsoft to ditch it wholesale in the foreseeable future.
What they can do is tweak around the edges to make Steam perform poorly and theoretically make the Windows app store more appealing, but that got a little bit tinfoil hat for me. I won't say it's unheard of, but they've already been under investigation once for these kinds of shenanigans and it doesn't look like we're going to have a friendly administration come in to pull their feet out of the fire this time.
Microsoft's ugly history is full of sketchy shenanigans, like the time it seemed like they were working to make sure WordPerfect wouldn't run in DOS due to subtle, breaking changes to the API (http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/ancient-microsoft-nov...) or those occasions where they were suspected of kneecapping Lotus in much the same way (http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2005/08/dos_aint_done...).
The new Microsoft leadership seems more interested in building bridges than in crushing and destroying companies Ballmer style, but I could be wrong. Removing win32 seems like a huge mistake both from an optics perspective and because of its impact on partners.