I disagree.
Consumers are hype and fad-chasing, high-risk and low-margin customers. Only if your business model relies primarily on high volume sales must you target consumers. Otherwise you'll be better off ignoring them.
IBM or SAP are two huge software corporations that have been around for a long time. Neither of them have cared about consumers in decades but they reliably generate huge profits and are absolutely sustainable. IMHO their existence proves software companies can get on just fine without consumers.
MS doesn't need consumers. Some of MS' offerings do however, foremost Windows and UWP.
MS has spent two decades restructuring Windows so it can run on a very wide range of hardware, large and small, from cloud server farms, to tablets, to gaming consoles and to IoT devices. That is a high-volume low-margin platform strategy that can't succeed without consumers. That represents at most 1/3 of MS' revenue however. Losing that would hurt, but it's no longer essential.
IBM and SAP had to lose many aspects of their portfolio to "stay around" and focus on singular aspect then diverse their holdings. However they do need costumers to stay around and this case it's enterprise users who are "consuming" / using their services and products.
In regards to Microsoft, you've proven my point cosumers are required when it comes to Windows and UWP.
Since their entire story revolves around Windows and therefore by extension UWP. There is on crucial factor that is at play here - integrity and by extension trust. Why I say that - Microsoft's entire goal through creation of the company was to encompass the three screens and the cloud as a result all that time and work was spent unifying the core of Windows to span many types of devices. By not focusing on UWP, that is thrown out the window (excuse the pun). Any operating system needs an app model to survive, Fortunately for Windows - Win32 applications will not being a going away anytime soon.
(Trust - that's simple - if any company is going to throw away all that effort on a whim to generate short term profits does not bode well when it comes to long play in terms of reliance when it comes to product planning - as result OEMs are pushing Alexa - just on example - yes there are other factors at play here - tooo many to list and elaborate on).
However if Microsoft is going to be competitive in the enterprise sector they need devices that focus on connectivity and portability. That is where Windows on ARM comes into the play but without UWP it doens't hold any muster. Which is why the reviews of these initial WoA devices were so dire thus most of the reviews revolved around emulation.
Microsoft absolutely needs WoA as it is the holy grail to computing - you have always on connectivity with crazy battery life [Intel or AMD are nowhere near to offering anything in that sector (yet)].
That is now a manadatory requirement for most people and also the planet as whole. As the global population increases, energy demands will increase so you must have devices that consume less energy, also run longer, are more efficient and charger faster.
To mitigate the strain on the infrastructure - for example power plants used to hold reserve power for "tea time" when many british households would put the kettle on around the same time. Everything and everyone is interconnected in one form or another.
If we are dealing with simple absolutes.
The only other method is to become so entrenched in everything (infrastructure) and that was proven correct by Satya Nadella saying he want's Microsoft to become the World's Computer. However that is not a sustainable strategy as you need to take into the account the vast costs of running data centres.
(Which is why Apple has been gobbling up renewable energy companies and billing themselves as a sole customers whilst selling their own energy supply to themselves).
There must be a always an offset as otherwise you will never be able to balance the books.
I agree with you that Windows will take a back seat in one point in time hence the rebrand of Microsoft 365 as a development platform.
But the fact remains without many growth avenues any company will reach a saturation point and therefore will have to expand in other areas. Let's take IBM for example they have been showing adverts how Watson can help small businesses that I would say classes as a form expansion into other areas because they've hit the inflection point and need to show stock holders that they are still growing as a company.
So going back to Microsoft, they still need the low end of the spectrum of computing (Again WoA+UWP) as without it sooner or later their hold in the enterprise sector will erode and so will the uptake of office 365. Simply because Google is making an aggressive push and when these kids grow up using solely android devices, chromebooks and google services it will force a change in the enterprise sector. (The old adage of nothing lasts forever, rings true for almost everything). It already is as many companies want people who have experience with Google docs and services.
As after all many of Google services are "free" and thus makes it even more a compelling argument to switch and save money. So Microsoft will be left with three options 1)Continue as is 2)Engage in a race to the bottom or 3)Stop participating. Neither hold positive growth points.
As they are so focused on ios and android that they foregoing mindshare when it comes to Windows based devices. As result OEMs are pushing Alexa instead of Cortana on Windows based devices. In addition they did stop participating and look where that got them.
In addition, Trust that is at an all time low given how many bridges Microsoft has burnt with Developers, OEMs, the consumer sector.
Mindshare is the key, people don't call themselves a microsoft gamer but a PC gamer or xbox gamer.
There are so many nuances and variables at play but I won't get into those are I'd end up typing up an entire library. So I'm being brief in regards to each point.
Now, lets put everything aside for one second and to put things into perspective.
There is a position called VP of Growth and Ecosystems.
Now, I'm not going to say what that tells me as I want to see what materialises due to this newly create post (the person holding the title, Charlotte Yarkoni has only been with the company for 8 months or so).
The only thing I want to say is that I hope she is given a blank cheque as you cannot grow anything with an artificially imposed cap. That's not to say the books shouldn't be balanced, a plant in a controlled environment will grow only when it has access the appropriate nutrients and care.
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