I read it was partly inspired by "Local Hero" (Bill Forsyth movie). The visiting Russian singer felt like a direct lift of the visiting Russian fisherman in "Local Hero".
We got rid of QA engineers a few years ago. I think some VP will hear what Nadella is doing and start their innovative initiative to start hiring QA engineers.
I can see it being nice if it's like Minority Report, where you can swipe small screens away, etc. Talk and it types. Glance to the left to see how the builds are going, etc. It could also be a nice virtual whiteboard. Usually it's hard to know how nice hardware can be without the apps. And you don't have to be in your office.
Around the time that GWT came out, offshoring was a big thing. And most of the contractors only knew Java. Also Java was the trusted language and javascript was not.