The Microsoft Surface team loses another big player β is it game over for the company’s Apple-beating hopes?
One of Microsoft’s top executives who led the design team for Surface devices (and Xbox, plus phones) has left the company after a long stint on the job.
Ralf Groene, who was head of Industrial Design at Microsoft Devices for almost ten years, has worked at Microsoft for a total of seventeen years.
If Windows Central spotted, Green net announced his retirement on LinkedIn. His new role as a retiree is βhelping friends design things,β as evidenced by his LinkedIn profile.
While the original Surface hybrid was launched in late 2012, a few years before Groene was placed in the position to lead the design team, he took the lead in creating and realizing a whole load of Surface hardware starting in 2015. That included the Surface Book (which first hit shelves later in 2015) and the Surface Duo.
The timing is interesting, as it has been a period of major change at the top for Microsoft recently.
Late last year we witnessed Panos Panay, the driving force behind the creation of the Surface line, leave Microsoft, and more recently Pavan Davuluri took over the reins of Windows from Mikhail Parakhin (Davuluri is now VP of Windows + Devices ).
Analysis: The state of Surface β and what it could mean for the future
At that initial launch in 2012, the Surface product line represented Microsoft’s attempt to build flagship hardware to fully demonstrate the capabilities of its Windows operating system. What exactly does the Surface range represent now, over a decade ago?
It’s clear that the devices on offer have become a lot more diverse over the years and that there are now many members of the Surface family in addition to that original hybrid.
Still, it’s felt quite stale lately, especially with the core offering of the Surface Pro tablet (with detachable keyboard accessory). Consider last year, for example, when we witnessed a very flat slate of new Surface offerings, with little buzz from the visible additions β and a lot of headaches about where the next Surface Pro was.
Now, of course, we’ve seen the Surface Pro 10, as well as Surface Laptop 6 β but so far only for businesses. Consumer models will be unveiled in May, but the wait is long overdue β and if the rumors are true, the consumer Surface Pro 10 may only offer an ARM chip (without Intel CPUs, even as an option).
That’s just a thin and rather wispy rumor mill, but it seems like a risky play if it comes out – or perhaps a measure of Microsoft’s confidence in Windows over ARM, given the arrival of the new Snapdragon X Elite SoC. Microsoft clearly believes that ARM silicon is coming into its own, and is now powerful enough to allow emulating x86 apps to run smoothly enough that it doesn’t matter (too much) that software doesn’t run natively on Surface devices. There are high hopes that Snapdragon could beat Apple’s M3 silicon (also ARM-based).
In that respect, we could see something very different with Surface’s core offering, although the design – as per the unveiling of the business-focused devices in March – once again remains the tried-and-true and decidedly risk-averse chassis and lines we’ve come to expect. It’s much the same case with the Surface Laptop 6.
In some ways we understand this β if it’s not broken and all. But perhaps with a change at the top of the design team, a newcomer will shake things up even more for future Surface devices to make their mark on the range in a more meaningful way.
Could this also be an opportunity for Microsoft to phase out its Surface lineup? To give up the fight against Apple? After all, Surface devices have been less profitable lately. However, we don’t see that as a realistic proposition, at least not yet – especially given the push Microsoft is currently giving ARM chips as part of its big AI PC drive – but depending on how well that all goes, things could change quite a bit . soon maybe.