One of the executives at Microsoft who led the design team for Surface devices (and Xbox, and phones) is leaving the company after a long stint.
Ralf Groene has been with Microsoft for the better part of a decade, serving as Director of Industrial Design for Microsoft Devices, for a total of 17 years.
As discovered by Windows Central, Groene just announced his retirement on LinkedIn. His new role as a retiree is “helping friends design,” according to his LinkedIn profile.
The original Surface Hybrid launched in late 2012, but years before Groene was given the role of leading the design team, he led the creation and realization of the entire Surface hardware starting in 2015. These included the Surface Book (which actually first hit store shelves in late 2015) and the Surface Duo.
The timing is interesting, as it has been a period of major change at the top for Microsoft recently.
Late last year, we witnessed Panos Panay, the man behind the creation of the Surface product line, leave Microsoft, and more recently Pavan Davuluri took over the reins of Windows from Mikhail Parakhin (Davuluri is currently leading the Windows + Vice President of Devices).
Analysis: The state of Surface – and what this means for the future
When it first launched in 2012, the Surface product line represented Microsoft’s attempt to build flagship hardware that unleashed the full power of the Windows OS. More than a decade later, what exactly does the Surface series represent?
Obviously, the devices offered have become quite diverse in recent years, and there are now many members of the Surface family in addition to the original hybrid.
Still, these days, it certainly feels pretty outdated when it comes to its core offering, the Surface Pro tablet (with removable keyboard accessory). For example, think back to last year. The new Surface product lineup has been pretty flat with few obvious additions, leading to a lot of head-scratching as to where the next Surface Pro will be.
Of course, there was the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6, but at least so far, they were only for businesses. A consumer model is expected to be announced in May, but it’s been a long time coming. If the rumors are true, the consumer Surface Pro 10 may only offer ARM chips (Intel CPUs aren’t even an option).
This is just a flimsy and faint rumor, but it seems like a risky strategy if it does work out – or perhaps, given the new Snapdragon X Elite SoC coming out on ARM. This may be a sign of Microsoft’s confidence in Windows. Microsoft clearly feels that ARM silicon is coming into its own, and that it’s now powerful enough to run x86 app emulation smoothly, making it easier for software not running natively on Surface devices. It also becomes less of an issue. In fact, there are high hopes that Snapdragon could outperform Apple’s M3 (also ARM-based) silicon.
In that respect, we see something very different in the core Surface products, but as the business-focused devices revealed in March, the designs are still time-tested and trusted, with no obvious risks. The chassis and lines we’re used to, while still staying in something that avoids the. The same goes for Surface Laptop 6.
In a way, we understand this – if it’s not broken, then everything else. But perhaps there will be a change at the top of the design team and someone new coming in to shake things up even more so that future Surface devices can make their mark on the product lineup in a more meaningful way.
Or could this be an opportunity for Microsoft to scale back its Surface lineup and abandon the fight with Apple? After all, Surface devices have been less profitable lately. But I don’t think that’s a realistic proposition, at least for now, especially given that Microsoft is now offering ARM chips as part of their large AI PC drives, but I’m not sure how it all works out. Depending on how things go, things could change dramatically. Probably rapidly.
