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.”
So they didn’t rule out branding changes, but the changes to Win 11 seem like a pretty big change from Win 10, which seems to go against the “Windows will be delivered as a service” statement. So it’s not just that one engineer, but probably a broader push (that may have been delayed or scrapped) to push gradual updates consistently instead of larger, periodic updates. I’m no expert, but I didn’t really see much difference in how Win 10 was released vs previous versions (e.g. XP, 7, and 10 all had service packs).