Microsoft on Our Minds, Lips and TV Appearances This Week

With Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella scheduled to headline a big Microsoft event next Thursday, Re/coders took to the airwaves to offer their thoughts on what is happening in Redmond.

Walt got dolled up (i.e. put on a jacket) to visit our friends at CNBC* to talk about reports that Microsoft is working on a iPad version of Microsoft Office. “They need to do a better version of the iPad version than the iPhone version last year,” Mossberg said, before crushing the souls of Microsoft product managers by adding that he found the iPhone version “simplistic.”

He also talked about PplConnect, a new app he tested last week which uses a website to link your smartphone to your Mac or PC and send text messages.

Microsoft was also very much on Ina’s mind this week as she helped preview CEO Satya Nadella’s first big public event next week (when he may unveil Office for iPad?) on CNBC. She noted that one of the challenges facing the company is “how do they become more relevant in a mobile and cloud world?”

Kara talked about how Nadella has been trying to reshape Microsoft in the short time since he’s taken over the show up in Redmond. As a long-time executive, “he’s responsible for some of the slowness of getting to some things,” at Microsoft, she said, but he’s trying to create a new tone and change the place so Microsofties can better compete with Google and other rivals.

Finally, no week is complete without another argument about net neutrality and Netflix provided everyone a new chance to opine about whether regulators need to step in and do something. Kara went on CNBC to talk about Netflix’s new complaint about the deal it struck with Comcast to provide faster streaming to consumers. Kara argued that the Netflix blog post was less about whining and more of an effort by CEO Reed Hastings to “make the larger point of is this the right way to go” for the future of the Internet.

*NBCUniversal is an investor in Revere Digital, which owns this website.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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