No, they never did. Yes, it was all over the news, but they literally didn’t. Go be angry at media for making stuff up. You don’t have to believe me, go ahead and find that announcement yourself. You won’t because there was never such an announcement.

Notice how even the article you linked doesn’t give a full quote? It just quotes someone saying “last version” without any context of the sentence it was used in? I will give you the full quote where that comes form. Someone asked a Microsoft employee what they are currently working on, and the answer was:

”Right now we’re releasing Windows 10, and because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we’re all still working on Windows 10.”

It is obvious from context “last version” meant “latest version” here. And that misreading of a quote, conveniently not included in most articles, is the only source for all these news. No announcement. No journalist actually asking Microsoft about it. Just a fleeting comment by one Microsoft employee that obviously meant something else, in an answer about something else, but why let that get in the way of a good story.

The company said it had yet to decide on what to call the operating system beyond Windows 10.

And the exact same article you linked confirms Microsoft is still deciding on the name for the next Windows? Which would make no sense if there was no next Windows?

“There will be no Windows 11,” warned Steve Kleynhans, a research vice-president at analyst firm Gartner.

There will be no Windows 11, says some guy who doesn’t work at Microsoft.

And then a bunch of cherry picked quotes about continous updates being a good thing. Yep, continous updates, just like we got in Windows Vista, and that have nothing to do with there not being new Windows versions.

Modern journalism is useless.