Microsoft itself has given up, and the UWP ecosystem is completely finished.

The UWP, once regarded by Microsoft as the fulcrum for ecological unification, has finally faded away. Microsoft announced in its newly released support document that it will discontinue the UWP version of the Microsoft 365 app. This version will stop receiving feature updates in October 2025. If users want to continue getting new features and use Microsoft 365 securely, they need to upgrade to the Microsoft 365 Click-to-Run version as soon as possible.

As Microsoft's flagship product, Microsoft 365's abandonment of the UWP version is undoubtedly a landmark event. After all, when even its own official software is no longer maintained, it means that UWP has truly become a thing of the past.

So why did Microsoft abandon UWP? Actually, it's because they essentially no longer attempt to continue the plan of unifying the desktop and mobile experiences. Their previous vision of "unification" has faded away.

In fact, Microsoft's "unification" plan started in the early days of the mobile Internet era. As the biggest winner in the PC Internet era, they lagged behind after entering the mobile Internet era. It was Android and iOS that transformed mobile phones from communication tools into general - purpose computing terminals, not Windows. In view of this, Microsoft launched Windows RT for tablets and Windows Phone 8 for mobile devices in 2012.

Unfortunately, in the budding stage of mobile operating systems, Steve Ballmer, who was in charge of Microsoft, looked down on smartphones. Under his leadership, Microsoft's mobile business was in a complete mess. Not to mention other things, during the transformation from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone, the former was directly abandoned. The decision to change the system kernel, which made it impossible for old models to upgrade, backstabbed old users and forced developers to re - develop applications.

Even the same story repeated itself during the upgrade from Windows Phone to Windows 10 Mobile. This is why Joe Belfiore, the former head of Microsoft's operating system, sighed when announcing the abandonment of Windows Phone, "We made strenuous efforts, encouraged third - party software developers, paid fees, and even developed software for them, but most developers were unwilling to invest in Windows 10 Mobile."

Originally, third - party developers lacked the initiative to bet on Windows Phone. Most of them developed corresponding applications only for the money. However, Microsoft's actions of spending money while also causing chaos completely alienated these third - party developers. Coupled with the fact that Windows Phone, as its successor, lacked a user base, it was impossible for it to achieve good results when even developers were unwilling to put in the effort.

To change the long - standing backward state of Windows Phone, Microsoft decided to take matters into its own hands. After Satya Nadella took over as CEO, UWP emerged. The core of UWP was that Microsoft wanted to leverage the large developer community and relevant resources accumulated in the Windows desktop ecosystem to support Windows Phone, enabling it to directly use mature PC applications and fundamentally solve the problem of the lack of applications.

Revitalizing PC resources for mobile use, Satya Nadella's move was clearly a well - thought - out one. Unfortunately, UWP, which only appeared on Windows 10, missed the right timing. By then, Android and iOS had already divided the mobile market. From the users' perspective, UWP couldn't answer the question of why they should abandon iOS and Android applications specifically designed for mobile devices and use the half - baked UWP. Moreover, phones with Microsoft's mobile operating system were no match for Apple's iPhones and a variety of Android phones.

Finally, when Windows 10 Mobile, the last product of Microsoft's mobile operating system, stopped receiving updates, the UWP applications, which were originally planned to "walk on two legs", became crippled. After losing the mobile end, the existence of UWP became extremely awkward. It had to compete with traditional win32 applications on the desktop. Even if we ignore the problem of reinventing the wheel, UWP applications are inferior to win32 applications. At least, developers don't like the former.

The APIs provided by Microsoft for UWP applications are far less abundant than those for traditional win32 applications. For example, UWP applications must run in a sandbox within the App Container and have difficulty obtaining many common system permissions. Therefore, many functions are restricted. Although UWP, developed for cross - platform use, doesn't have to carry the historical baggage of the Windows platform, this is both a blessing and a curse. While traveling light is an advantage, poor compatibility is a disadvantage.

It's well - known that one of the important selling points of the Windows system is its excellent compatibility. Even though it has paid the price of excessive system redundancy, old applications can still run on the latest Windows 11. This is the reason why Microsoft dominates the desktop operating system market. After all, for developers, developing UWP applications can neither expand the user base nor collect more user information, and it also requires more effort.

So, in a sense, after third - party developers voted with their feet and stayed away from the hopeless UWP, Microsoft alone couldn't prop up this shaky software ecosystem. It can only be said that Microsoft has finally realized that unifying all platforms is not a reliable idea. In fact, if Microsoft really wants to provide a unified experience for its platforms, Copilot AI may have more potential.

This article is from the WeChat official account "3eLife" (ID: IT - 3eLife). The author is 3e Jun. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.