4 ms·
> I don’t know what’s gotten into Microsoft lately. Remember when it was the Death Star, monopolistically glowering over technopolis and threatening to cut off
by _bxg1 8y ago
> I don’t know what’s gotten into Microsoft lately. Remember when it was the Death Star, monopolistically glowering over technopolis and threatening to cut off the air supply of competitors and regulators alike?
Microsoft is a relative underdog now (among the tech giants). Underdogs tend to benefit more, personally, from the greater good, and also have less clout with which to push others around. This makes them come off as being more humble, and if they're smart they lean into that image in their public relations. Just look at AMD and T-Mobile.
With this move Microsoft is trying to fertilize a shared resource, investing some of its own money but also hoping to pressure Amazon - the company it's trying to get a leg up on - to invest alongside it. Amazon has less need for the shared resource and would have to contribute a greater amount to it. On top of that, Microsoft gets some positive PR. It's a smart move.
Edit: I've been informed that Microsoft is currently #1 in market cap, so not an underdog overall. They feel like an underdog in most isolated product categories, but maybe this really is purely a PR move.
- jermaustin1 8y ago> Microsoft is a relative underdog now How so? According to NASDAQ, MSFT is valued higher than all of the FAANG companies. It's north of $900B right now.
- MagicPropmaker 8y agoIf that's what people believe, it's brilliant! Part of the strategy of Apple's resurrection was making people think they were the little guy; the hip, cool alternative for people who "think different." Now Microsoft can play the same game. As of right now, MSFT market cap is $895B and AAPL is $888B. Some underdog!
- rlanday 8y ago> Microsoft is a relative underdog now (among the tech giants). Microsoft is currently the largest company in the world by market cap.
- _bxg1 8y agoHmm, that's surprising. It has a dodgy foothold in mobile, Amazon (and possibly also Google?) has it beat in cloud services, Google Docs has taken a chunk of Office's territory, Chrome OS is overtaking Windows in education, Mobile+Apple+Chrome OS are swallowing it in personal computing and (I believe) gaining some ground even in enterprise. It doesn't seem like Microsoft has dominance in anything but desktop OS right now. It's just a general perception, as a casual observer, that Microsoft has been ceding lots of territory lately and not really gaining much.
- polyomino 8y agoMicrosoft used to be a boxed software business, now they're transitioning to saas. It's really that simple.
- _bxg1 8y agoRight, but Amazon and Google are arguably better than them at SaaS. AWS is second to none for cloud hosting, and Google is second to none for AI.
- cwyers 8y agoOnly if you ignore the categories of software where Microsoft leads -- Active Directory and Office 365 are SaaS offerings that Microsoft has that are seeing massive adoption, and Microsoft is using that to leverage businesses onto their other cloud offerings.
- gamblor956 8y agoGoogle is second to none for AI. Definitely going to disagree there. While Google has done more work on commercializing piss-poor AI, MS Research has been at the forefront of AI research since before Google learned how to make money. Google is definitely the second fiddle when it comes to AI research, and it's not even close.
- 8y ago
- CPLX 8y ago> Microsoft is a relative underdog now (among the tech giants) lol
- mallocfree 8y ago>Microsoft is a relative underdog now (among the tech giants). How do you define a Tech giant? By Market cap they are #1. Here are top 5. 1. Microsoft $895B 2. Apple $888B 3. Amazon $867B 4. Google $816B 5. Facebook $473B They have been in top 3 for last 30 years with a robust business model. They missed on Mobile and search but hey it would be hard for any tech company to top in each market.
- anth_anm 8y agoSettling for #2 in search and cloud isn't exactly a bad consolation prize.
- kerng 8y agoUnderdog? It's the largest company by market cap in the world. That can be viewed as being the most successful company there is (over time). They sure do a lot of things right lately though.