If Lunduke ran Microsoft...

What would Lunduke do if he were the CEO of Microsoft? Awesome things. That's what. Here's what Lunduke's first week would look like.

Hypothetical: Satya Nadela calls me up one morning. Says, “Hey, Lunduke! I’m tired of running Microsoft. And you’re pretty rad… wanna try running it for a while?”

Hey. It could happen.

So, now that I’m the new CEO of Microsoft… what will I do with the Redmond giant?

Oh. I’ve got ideas. And they are awesome. Here’s the things I would do during my first week on the job.

Day 1: Open Source Windows 3.1 & MS-DOS 6

On my very first day being the CEO of Microsoft, I would open source the entire source code for Windows 3.1.

Microsoft isn’t earning any money on it. It’s been put to pasture for years. Let’s open source the darn thing and let the people of the world play with it.

While we’re at it, let’s do the same for MS-DOS version 6.0. Because it’s the right thing to do. Can you imagine the “distributions” of an open source MS-DOS + Windows 3.1 that would get made? It would be both ridiculous and spectacular.

Day 2: Make a “Windows 95” mode for Windows 11

On my second day as “da boss”, I would tell the Windows team to build an option into Windows 11 (and Windows 10) that makes the entire thing look and act exactly like Windows 95 (and Windows 2000).

Classic Start menu. Classic Explorer / File browser. Classic theme.

Every version of Windows after 95/2000 looks ridiculous. Take modern Windows, and make it look and behave like the older stuff.

You’re welcome.

Day 3: Free Clippy!

The first two days were a lot of hard work. Let’s take a little bit of a breather on day number three… and release the source code and art assets for Clippy (aka the office assistant).

Maybe even do it under the BSD license. Just because I can.

Day 4: Bring back the Pocket PC

“Wait, what?”

Yeah. You heard me. On day four as the CEO of Microsoft, I’ll create a new division within Microsoft with a simple goal:

Bring the Pocket PC back to life.

I’m not talking about those weirdo “Windows Phone”, tile-based things here. I’m talking about that classic, Windows CE-powered Pocket PC experience.

A handheld PDA with a Windows 95 styled Start Menu.

Yeah, baby!

Take that old Pocket PC. Beef up the hardware behind it. Update the system to support more RAM, speed, and whatnot. And leave the user interface exactly like it was. Don’t mess with it.

Then release a new Pocket PC handheld device. One that you can plug in and “sync” to a computer. Just like the old PDA days.

Why? Because it’d be awesome. And fun.

Sure. Most people probably won’t want it. Because they like their smart phones. I get that.

This isn’t for them. This is for me.

Day 5: Kill .Net, bring back Visual Basic & QuickBASIC

On the morning of the fifth day, I will send an email out to the company with the subject line: “We need to Old Yeller dot Net”

Dot Net was a mistake. It needs to die. Time to take it behind the barn and put that thing out of its misery.

“WHAT?! You can’t do that!!!”

I can. And I will. Come to think of it… C# needs to go, entirely. The company will get back to coding in C and C++ just like the good lord intended.

Ah, heck, you know what? While we’re at it… let’s bring back Visual Basic. Not that horrid abomination “VB.NET”… but real Visual Basic. The kind your grand-daddy used to use.

Let’s be frank. Microsoft was, literally, founded on the BASIC programming language. That’s the whole reason the company exists. So let’s bring back the QuickBASIC line too. Start with QB 4.5 and go from there. Really get back to those Microsoft roots.

Day 6: Microsoft Office for Linux

Yeah, you heard me. On day number six, I’ll form a new group focused on bringing Microsoft software to Linux.

Their first task? Port Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook to Linux. With the user interface of Office version 4.3 (which was, in my oh-so-humble opinion) the best version of Office ever made. (I worked on MS Office for several years, so I have rather strong opinions on the Office code base.)

Maybe even port Access. Just for kicks and giggles.

Day 7: XBOX Classic Handheld

The original XBOX was one seriously fun console. Let’s bring it back.

… in portable form.

For the final day of my first week on the job, I’d instruct the XBOX team to begin building a hand-held game console that is compatible with original XBOX software.

Treat it like one of those “Mini” consoles from Nintendo or SEGA. No online software store… just pre-load the darn thing with a ton of XBOX games. The best ones. Store them on internal memory in .ISOs. People can load up other .ISOs for other games.

Halo on the go. Original Halo. Not those silly sequels. The real one. Would be fantastic.

Thus Ends Week One

So, there ya go. That’s what I’d do if I ran Microsoft for a week.

Would it be profitable?

Well.

Maaaaybe? (Probably not)

But it sure would be fun!

How about all of you? What would you do if you were the King of Microsoft? Bring back Xenix? Microsoft Fortran? The Microsoft Teletubby ActiMates (look that one up, it’s crazy)?