Insider sources at Microsoft have spoken of continued efforts to modernize the core of its operating system, with the work-in-progress Windows 12 cited as the ideal candidate for substantial updates. The engineering team is reported to be integrating a modular design, which will allow for a reduced operating system footprint - similar in principle to ChromeOS. According to a Windows Report article the operating system development team is hard at work on a spiritual successor to the abandoned Windows Core OS project. Their newest effort is reported to be called "Windows CorePC" and Microsoft is aiming to hit the same goals it set for its Windows 10X edition, which was cancelled in mid-2021, but they will also target native support for legacy applications on devices that require necessary access.

Windows Core OS was shutdown after years of development and internal testing - it was hoped that a modular Universal Windows Platform-first (UWP-F) operating system would be more lightweight and gain stronger security features, as well as greater access to regular updates. The inside sources stated that Windows Core OS will not be developed any further, at least not for desktop computer purposes. The Microsoft team is anticipating that its new CorePC project will lead onto new configurations of Windows that feature a capability of scaling up and down depending on hardware variations. Windows PCs and devices, in some user case scenarios, do not require full breadth of legacy Win32 application support. CorePC will enable different configurations of Windows to be installed on a custom basis.

Windows 10X, an ambitious lightweight PC operating system under development at Microsoft, which was being designed to compete with Google's Chrome OS, has reportedly been shelved. The OS was designed for pretty much the same class of hardware as Chrome OS—entry-level with lightweight specs, with just enough muscle for web-browsing, and web-based applications that leverage cloud storage. The company even bet big on Chromium, the web rendering engine powering Chrome, over to its Edge browser. A new report by Petri states that Windows 10X will not launch in 2021, and that the project is shelved.

The reason behind Microsoft's decision is anyone's guess. Pulling off a second, purpose-built client-segment PC OS entails developing a hardware ecosystem, like Google did with Chrome OS. Secondly, Microsoft has flirted with lightweight versions of its PC operating systems more than once in the past, be it Windows RT or Windows 7 Basic; both of which met with limited success. Thirdly, Chrome OS itself isn't being shown outpacing Windows 10 as it probably was in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinvigorated the PC landscape, with much of the skilled workforce connecting from home.

Microsoft has reportedly delayed launch of its Surface Neo launch. The dual-screen foldable PC/tablet convertible was originally slated for Holiday 2020 at its October 2019 announcement, but the company feels it's not ready with it. It could now launch at an appropriate date, either in 2021 or later. Microsoft's ambitious new Windows 10X operating system, originally designed for dual-screen devices such as the Surface Neo, will now debut with single-screen devices that have a touchscreen (such as 2-in-1 notebooks in conventional 360° clamshell form-factors), confirmed Panos Panay, Windows client- and devices head, in a blog post dated Monday (4/5). From the looks of it, the company is focused on getting Windows 10 May 2020 Update (2004) out as smoothly as possible.

Microsoft has decided to shift its focus away from Windows 10X dual-screen laptop solutions in the near term, according to the report from ZDNet. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has happened recently, Microsoft's Chief Product Officer Panos Panay internally informed his team that Microsoft will not be focusing its efforts on delivering the Windows 10X based dual-screen laptops this year. However, Microsoft is committed to that idea and will not shift away from it completely, it is just taking a rest for now. This is bad news for everyone that was hoping to get Surface Neo dual-screen laptop that was meant for the Holiday season of 2020. In addition to Surface Neo not shipping this year, Microsoft isn't enabling any new Windows 10X dual-screen device to ship this year either.

What Microsoft is focusing on, however, is to get Windows 10X firstly on single-screen devices. That means that regular laptops should be getting the Windows 10X treatment sometime this year so vendors can launch products to compete with Chromebook devices, based on Google's ChromeOS.

The ThinkPad brand from Lenovo has always represented serious business on the move, right from its IBM origins. At CES 2020, the company unveiled what is possibly the best foldable PC design we've seen till date, the ThinkPad X1 Fold. The X1 Fold is a 13.3-inch tablet that folds perfectly along the middle to either a book-like orientation, or as a laptop, in which the top half becomes the display, and the bottom half your keyboard of whichever possible layout. If a touchscreen keyboard doesn't appeal to you, you can dock an accessory that has a physical keyboard and trackpad.

Under the hood of the X1 Fold is an Intel "Lakefield" Hybrid x86 SoC that combines high-performance and high-efficiency x86 cores and dynamically allots workload to them while power-gating on the fly (a la ARM big.LITTLE). When it comes out mid-2020 (likely a Computex 2020 launch), the ThinkPad X1 Fold will be driven by Windows 10X, a new operating system Microsoft is designing specifically for dual-screen mobile computing devices. The Flex 5G is Lenovo's first business notebook with an integrated 5G modem (in addition to Wi-Fi 6), so you can enjoy high-speed mobile Internet on the move. Lastly, we spotted the Lenovo Ducati notebook, a co-branded product of the company's MotoGP team sponsorship.