A great annotated Twitter thread from Steven Sinofsky, who was leading the launch of Windows 7 coincident with when the iPad was announced.

19/ The iPad and iPhone were soundly existential threats to Microsoft’s core platform business. Without a platform Microsoft controlled that developers sought out, the soul of the company was “missing.”

20/ The PC had been overrun by browsers, a change 10 years in the making. PC OEMs were deeply concerned about a rise of Android and loved the Android model (no PC maker would ultimately be a major Android OEM, however). Even Windows Server was eclipsed by Linux and Open Source.

21/ The kicker for me, though, was that keyboard stand for the iPad. It was such a hack. Such an obvious “objection handler.” But it was critically important because it was a clear reminder that the underlying operating system was “real”…it was not a “phone OS”.