In the latest preview of the operating system's fall feature upgrade, Microsoft has mandated that its built-in Edge browser handle the opening of links within the Windows Mail app.
Microsoft will try a new way to push Windows 10 users into running Edge, forcing links opened from the Windows Mail app and its messages to display in the browser.
Normally, links embedded in messages retrieved by the Windows Mail app open in the default browser, which may be an Edge rival if the user has set one.
In the latest preview of Windows 10's fall feature upgrade, currently known as 1809 in Microsoft's yymm label format, Microsoft has mandated that Edge assume responsibilities for opening links within messages.
"We will begin testing a change where links clicked on within the Windows Mail app will open in Microsoft Edge, which provides the best, most secure and consistent experience on Windows 10 and across your devices," announced Dona Sarkar and Brandon LeBlanc, the Microsoft employees who most often speak for the Insider preview team, in a post to a company blog last week.
The change was added to build 17623 of the "Skip Ahead" version of Windows Insider. The Skip Ahead builds are offered to the limited number of Insider participants whom Microsoft lets continue with the latest code during the month or longer run-up to a release of one of the twice-annual feature upgrades. Microsoft will ship the spring upgrade, designated as 1803, sometime in early April.
Although Sarkar and LeBlanc trumpeted Edge's security and battery life in their post, they said nothing about what must almost certainly be the real reason for the move: To make Windows 10 users run Edge, if only in circumscribed circumstances.
Microsoft has good reason to up the pressure on users.
Since it debuted as the default within Windows 10 nearly three years ago, Edge's user share of the browsers run under the OS has been in steady decline. In February, Edge accounted for a record-low percentage - less than 12% of all Windows 10 systems - which represented a nearly-two-percentage-point decline from the month before. And Edge's continued slide has been in the face of Windows 10's own growing share. Windows 10 last month powered 39% of all Windows PCs. In other words, the more people who run Windows 10, the less they collectively like Edge.
None of those plays have halted the browser's decline.
It was unclear whether the Edge-related change introduced in build 17623 will remain in place long enough to appear in the 1809 feature upgrade later this year. Sarkar and LeBlanc left room for backpedaling. "As always, we look forward to feedback from our WIP [Windows Insider Program] community," the two wrote, implying that if customers turned thumbs down, Microsoft might rethink the maneuver.
They'll likely get into trouble with this again with the EU regulators, like they did over forcing defaults for search engines, Windows Media Player, Internet Exploder.
Microsoft's marketing a-holes have been less visible in recent years - leading to a very real improvement in Microsoft's reputation - but that innate craving to control users and manipulate them into Microsoft's ecosystem is still alive and well in Redmond.
Microsoft's mindshare is in decline in the age of cellphones and apps and app stores, etc. They have 3d prototyping and virtual reality, powerful PC tablets (Surface), PC gaming, Xbox gaming, M$ Office, and a big third-party industry supplying Windows apps to various companies and government entities.
Microsoft's failures:
They've failed to dominate the digital living room (a dream they pursued for decades and are now reduced to offering crap like Netflix and Amazon Video and Hulu as clients on their X-Box platform).
Windows Media Player is a marginal entity, completely eclipsed by Roku, Plex, Amazon Video, Hulu, Netflix, etc.
The Bing search engine isn't bad but no one loves it either. It could disappear and no one would care much except for Microsoft employees.
Windows Mobile cellphone editions have completely flopped, eclipsed by Android and iOS phones. Microsoft put huge effort and money into this market and got nothing.
The Zune media player was meant to be an iPod killer and instead made Microsoft look like a bad joke.
Microsoft is no longer the big shark it once was. The entire hardware and software market have eclipsed them. Many of their flagship products are in decline; it's not just the Edge browser by any means.
Microsoft used to be the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Now Apple is the gorilla. And Facebook and Google and Amazon are the other gorillas, all of them more important than Microsoft. Yeah, sure, with caveats but that is how it really is.
