Microsoft Acquires Double Labs, Might Turn It Into A "Lab" For Experiments On New Features

It seems like since Steve Ballmer left the helm of Microsoft and handed it over to Satya Nadella, the company has finally started to look, act, and be the tech company it’s supposed to be.

Microsoft was the butt of tech jokes in the past. The messy code, the fact that Windows was the prime target of malware outbreaks and hacking, these were but a couple of reasons why most developers and tech-savvy consumers had a rather low opinion of the company. Add to the fact that Ballmer spouted off a lot of very uninformed statements during his reign, so much so that The Register and other publications actually made compilations of those.

Read “Top 10 Steve Ballmer quotes: '%#&@!!' and so much more”: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/24/top_10_steve_ballmer_quotes_from_microsoft_history/

Also, “Steve Ballmer's Biggest Mistakes As CEO Of Microsoft”: www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmers-most-epic-mistakes-as-ceo-of-microsoft-2013-8?op=1

Indeed, before Satya Nadella, Microsoft was more “the clown of the Tech world,” and less of a true tech company.

Today, though, after the successful Windows 10 launch, and after the Microsoft Edge Browser exceeded expectations, heads are turning with Microsoft’s bold new moves, and are expecting the company to deliver more than its usual plate of clownery in the past.

Last Friday, Business Insider broke the news that Microsoft bought Double Labs, makers of Echo Notification Lockscreen, a lockscreen app that replaces the way notifications work on mobile devices.

Microsoft already has a lockscreen app, the Microsoft Next lockscreen for Android, and yet they acquired this lockscreen app and its company, as well. But why?

Microsoft Chief Experience Officer Julie Larson-Green communicated that not only is this app going to create a more personalized, more “beautiful” productivity experience, but Double Labs may be another playground for Microsoft’s developers to test out their apps and features, before releasing them into the wild, or integrating them into the Microsoft Operating System.

Double Labs’ data and code will give them access to Android’s innards, so to speak, and the existing 50,729 reviews on Google Play for Echo Notification Lockscreen would definitely be helpful in guiding Microsoft’s direction on app and feature development. Whether for this app alone, or for other apps and features the company is looking to build.

As Julie Larson-Green says, putting out the test features on separate apps allows the company to fully test it. This will allow them to avoid shipping half-baked, even user-unfriendly features, and will also allow them to tweak and refine the features further. This ensures that they won’t compromise their major target market—the millions of Windows users out there—while still being able to test out their new ideas.

Here’s to brave, bold moves for Microsoft. With these new developments, the company is finally getting things, like innovation, right.