In June, the then Windows engineering chief, Julie Larson-Green stated that Microsoft must respond to Apple's iOS and Google's android's increasing dominance on the smartphone industry. "We can provide unique, differentiated experiences on our devices and on other people's devices," Larson-Green stated on July 11 when she was named to manage the hardware and studio group of Microsoft.

Analysts believe that Larson-Green's mindset would prevail at Microsoft while it faces a decreasing demand for Windows PC. It would be good for the company which now controls only 20% of the whole consumer-computing market. This was compared with Android's 42% and Apple's 24% in Goldman Sachs' data.

According to IDC, Microsoft struggled to shift into the mobile devices since its Surface tablets constituted only 3.7% of the total tablet sales. Furthermore, its Windows Phone operating system accounted for only 3.2% of smartphone sales. The company reported its largest quarterly profit decline in more than 10 years, bearing US$900 million writedown on unsold tablets.

With the company's latest reorganization, Microsoft's attitude changes to "let's go build on the things that can be great, instead of just deciding arbitrarily to limit how customers can come into the ecosystem which tends to hurt us all in the end," Marc Whitten, Microsoft's Xbox chief product officer said.