Reading the tech tea leaves in Microsoft’s new words – GeekWire

Microsoft’s future just got a major overhaul.

The metaverse, hybrid work, flexibility, trust and the role of technology in the global economy are some of the new additions to Microsoft’s annual keynote version.

It’s the first part of Microsoft’s annual Form 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, titled “Embracing Our Future.” While it’s easy to dismiss it as just boilerplate in a mandatory regulatory register, it’s more than that. The short passage describes Microsoft’s reasons for being, presents its vision for the future, and doubles as a symbol of its times.

One of the changes this year is the word “metaverse” at the beginning.

Microsoft still uses “mixed reality” elsewhere in the document, its preferred phrase for technology that includes virtual and augmented reality, as exemplified by its HoloLens headset. However, the phrase has been replaced by “metaverse” in this key section, reflecting the company’s vision of virtual worlds (and tendency to draw on industry buzzwords).

2021: Physical and virtual worlds are coming together with the Internet of Things (“IoT”) and mixed reality to create rich experiences that understand the context around people, the things they use, the places they go, and their activities and interactions. One’s experience with technology encompasses many devices and is increasingly becoming more natural and multi-sensory with sound, color and visual interactions.

2022: We’re enabling balanced experiences across our entire stack so our customers can efficiently model, automate, simulate and predict changes in their industrial environment, feel more present in the new world of hybrid work, and create custom immersive worlds. To enable new opportunities for communication and experimentation.

Over the years, the 10-Q class “Embrace Our Future” has evolved and grown. For the first time this year, it contained 300 words, in four paragraphs, doubling the amount from 2016.

Whether or not Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella cares about every single comma, the changes and additions made every year make it clear that certain people at the company take these words very seriously. In this way, they provide a window into the company’s mindset and the state of the industry.

The changes this year, including a new focus on efficiency and resilience, reflect an uncertain economy.

Microsoft is “creating tools and platforms that deliver better, faster and more efficient solutions,” reads a new addition. Another said the company is “growing and expanding our entire portfolio to help people and organizations overcome today’s challenges and emerge stronger.”

See all edits in this screenshot from the “Compare Documents” feature in Microsoft Word, new additions in green, deletions in blue, and unchanged text in black. (Here’s a larger version.)

Here are a few other notable changes:

2021: Our ecosystem of customers and partners has collaborated to help people and organizations in every country use technology to become resilient and transform in the most challenging environments.

2022: While the hybrid ecosystem of our customers and partners is complex, we’ve learned that embracing flexibility, diverse work styles and a culture of trust can help navigate the challenges facing today’s world.

In the year

2022: In a changing environment, digital technology is a key resource driving global economic performance.

2021: We live in a new era of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge, which is being shaped by rapid advances in distributed computing, ambient intelligence and multi-device experiences.

2022: We’re building a distributed computing fabric—in the cloud and at the edge—to help every organization build, run, and manage mission-critical workloads anywhere.

Read the full article on Microsoft’s 10-K filings from 2022, 2021, and 2016.

Also check out this previous story on data from its 2022 10-K: Microsoft added 40,000 employees last year, up 22% before the job cuts.