Funny thing is this was absolutely never said by Microsoft. If you dig deep enough you reach a single throwaway quote by some employee that said something along the lines of "Windows 10 is the last version released and we're focusing all attention to it, not 8.1".
Except MS did confirm that statement separately when asked
> When I reached out to Microsoft about Nixon's comments, the company didn't dismiss them at all. "Recent comments at Ignite about Windows 10 are reflective of the way Windows will be delivered as a service bringing new innovations and updates in an ongoing manner, with continuous value for our consumer and business customers," says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. "We aren’t speaking to future branding at this time, but customers can be confident Windows 10 will remain up-to-date and power a variety of devices from PCs to phones to Surface Hub to HoloLens and Xbox. We look forward to a long future of Windows innovations."
There's a couple of ways I'd interpret that non-answer, but I absolutely don't see that as a confirmation.
"I don't know the answer, but I have to say something." Or "The answer's no, but this rumour goes in our favour of convincing people to switch to 10 so we're not going to deny it."
If it said "Windows 10 will remain up-to-date indefinitely", then I'd agree.
Oh come on. I've been talking for years with Microsoft representatives and they were balls-deep on the windows-as-a-service scheme for years, until they weren't.
You could argue that Microsoft was betting on Windows 10 as a platform and that Windows 11 is in fact built on this platform (and the 11 is just marketing lingo for 10.x). But despite Microsoft revisionism, the fact is that they changed there mind along the way.
Funny thing is this was absolutely never said by Microsoft. If you dig deep enough you reach a single throwaway quote by some employee that said something along the lines of "Windows 10 is the last version released and we're focusing all attention to it, not 8.1".