7 ms·

I am not sure why you are saying Microsoft transformed, its still the same old one now trying to embrace Linux as it runs as the main workload on Azure instead

I am not sure why you are saying Microsoft transformed, its still the same old one now trying to embrace Linux as it runs as the main workload on Azure instead of windows. This is just done for survival, otherwise Microsoft would have gone to irrelevance. Windows and Office licenses are still the main driver for Microsoft, just with accounting tricks and office 360 made into cloud revenues. This is an investor story to jack up the stocks. They are no better than google when it comes to platform lock-in. On top of it having used Azure services, I can say without a doubt its inferior to Amazon and Google cloud experience. Microsoft didn't transform it's just that enterprises who hold up upgrading Windows and Office did so after windows 7 debacle to Windows 10. This is just cyclical uptick, not really transformation, its just lucky Nadella. The only good thing Nadella did is, didn't take any disastrous decision to thwart the uptick by embracing Linux and trying open source, by understanding that if it's not done Microsoft will go the IBM path to irrelevance. In the process Microsoft having an old relationship with enterprises helped them to move some workloads to Azure even though it is an inferior service, by supporting Linux and showing commitment to it for financial gain not out of goodwill towards open source. Still today Microsoft relevance on mobile is due to its office products, otherwise it is as good as irrelevant on mobile application and development front. It's alive on mobile just due to proprietary platform lock-in to .NET. Now made it open source to try to increase the share as it's not as useful given the rise of nodejs, Python, rust and other platforms.

tsimionescu 7y ago
Windows has not seen a payed upgrade for 5 years - that is in itself a major change. We'll see if they continue on this road, but for now their announced plan is that there will not be a new paid update of Windows. This clearly cuts down on one of the revenue streams for Windows Licensing. Microsoft is the largest single contributor to Linux development. They have a large hand in Kubernetes. .NET is open source and runs on Linux/Mac natively. They have released and are maintaining the most popular lite IDE/editor of the decade simultaneously for Linux/Mac/Windows, and it was open source from the start. MSVC has a Clang frontend. That they are not relevant on mobile seems a non-sequitur. The discussion was on whether the Microsoft Windows-first culture has changed, and it clearly has. They have clearly embraced open-source as a good strategy for them, and are making massive investments in it. I would also note that Azure, while having all sorts of unexpected limitations, is at least much more transparent about pricing than AWS. The Azure UI almost always includes pricing information on the resources you are creating, which AWS carefully segregates away.
- dragonsh 7y ago
  This licensing does not apply to enterprise editions and volume licensing, I believe you are still looking at consumer market which Microsoft already lost to a Apple and lately google chromebooks. The major revenue stream for Microsoft is still old long term licensing deal for office combined with windows and than related server technologies to support office applications. The model changed from licensing+upgrade fee to new subscription fees. This can be office 360 subscriptions which get you office products and windows or volume license subscriptions. Depending on the type of subscriptions these are classified as cloud or windows and office revenue. Azure come into picture as those companies having volume licenses have applications in legacy .NET which they move to Azure. Microsoft is supporting Linux today because they lost the battle of technical superiority and most of the azure workloads for supporting internal business apps run on Linux. They ported .NET to Linux just to have those old accounts do not move out of azure and Microsoft proprietary eco-system easily and move them to subscription with long term contracts. Majority of the revenue effect you see is just because Microsoft abandoned product updates for old versions and forced customers to move to windows 10 and above by making old one economically very expensive. So Nadella was lucky because he got the benefit of the cyclical revenue increase due to enterprise upgrades which companies didn’t do for many years. Obviously adoption of Linux as primary driver for Azure kept those old customers from moving out of Azure to Amazon or google, even though technically azure quality and services were inferior. A company will not move to amazon or google unless there is significant exponential gains. If the old vendor can still support and give something which is not bad but not the best, customer will still stay on and here Nadella was good not to bash Linux like Balmer.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    It’s just as easy to move .Net Framework workloads to AWS as it is to Azure.
    - dragonsh 7y ago
      Companies prefer to purchase services within an established contract than to go ahead and sign a new one with new provider and go through the bidding process. Also .Net is synonymous with microsoft so there is no reason to trust AWS, it's not their priority, they are a Perl and Java shop in general.
eitland 7y ago
> I am not sure why you are saying Microsoft transformed, its still the same old one now trying to embrace Linux I'm one of those persons who upsold friends, families and at least one boss on to use Linux. I'm not a business analyst but I can say that Microsoft has transformed. I still prefer Linux as does a number of fellow sysadmins and developers, but Microsoft has changed to the point where they are not a problem to us anymore. Azure portal works equally well from Firefox on Linux as from Internet Explorer or Edge on Windows. > as it runs as the main workload on Azure instead of windows. This is just done for survival, otherwise Microsoft would have gone to irrelevance. The best reason for transformation in fact: because the subject realizes it is in their own best interest to change and it improves their situation. > Windows and Office licenses are still the main driver for Microsoft, just with accounting tricks and office 360 made into cloud revenues. I don't know. > This is an investor story to jack up the stocks. They are no better than google when it comes to platform lock-in. On top of it having used Azure services, I can say without a doubt its inferior to Amazon and Google cloud experience. I've used Amazon (two years, narrow experience) and Google Cloud (two years, broader but possibly shallower experience, certified) and now Azure lately. So far, inferior is not the word I would use. I'd possibly stick with different or something neutral.
sdfdswt346 7y ago
Well, .NET Core and their approach to Open Source is what makes "new MS" decent (from my pov)
scarface74 7y ago
Office 360 hasn’t been a part of cloud revenues in years. .Net Core is open source and available for Macs and Linux. It’s almost 5 years old now.

tsimionescu 7y ago

Windows has not seen a payed upgrade for 5 years - that is in itself a major change. We'll see if they continue on this road, but for now their announced plan is that there will not be a new paid update of Windows. This clearly cuts down on one of the revenue streams for Windows Licensing. Microsoft is the largest single contributor to Linux development. They have a large hand in Kubernetes. .NET is open source and runs on Linux/Mac natively. They have released and are maintaining the most popular lite IDE/editor of the decade simultaneously for Linux/Mac/Windows, and it was open source from the start. MSVC has a Clang frontend. That they are not relevant on mobile seems a non-sequitur. The discussion was on whether the Microsoft Windows-first culture has changed, and it clearly has. They have clearly embraced open-source as a good strategy for them, and are making massive investments in it. I would also note that Azure, while having all sorts of unexpected limitations, is at least much more transparent about pricing than AWS. The Azure UI almost always includes pricing information on the resources you are creating, which AWS carefully segregates away.

dragonsh 7y ago
This licensing does not apply to enterprise editions and volume licensing, I believe you are still looking at consumer market which Microsoft already lost to a Apple and lately google chromebooks. The major revenue stream for Microsoft is still old long term licensing deal for office combined with windows and than related server technologies to support office applications. The model changed from licensing+upgrade fee to new subscription fees. This can be office 360 subscriptions which get you office products and windows or volume license subscriptions. Depending on the type of subscriptions these are classified as cloud or windows and office revenue. Azure come into picture as those companies having volume licenses have applications in legacy .NET which they move to Azure. Microsoft is supporting Linux today because they lost the battle of technical superiority and most of the azure workloads for supporting internal business apps run on Linux. They ported .NET to Linux just to have those old accounts do not move out of azure and Microsoft proprietary eco-system easily and move them to subscription with long term contracts. Majority of the revenue effect you see is just because Microsoft abandoned product updates for old versions and forced customers to move to windows 10 and above by making old one economically very expensive. So Nadella was lucky because he got the benefit of the cyclical revenue increase due to enterprise upgrades which companies didn’t do for many years. Obviously adoption of Linux as primary driver for Azure kept those old customers from moving out of Azure to Amazon or google, even though technically azure quality and services were inferior. A company will not move to amazon or google unless there is significant exponential gains. If the old vendor can still support and give something which is not bad but not the best, customer will still stay on and here Nadella was good not to bash Linux like Balmer.
- scarface74 7y ago
  It’s just as easy to move .Net Framework workloads to AWS as it is to Azure.
  - dragonsh 7y ago
    Companies prefer to purchase services within an established contract than to go ahead and sign a new one with new provider and go through the bidding process. Also .Net is synonymous with microsoft so there is no reason to trust AWS, it's not their priority, they are a Perl and Java shop in general.

eitland 7y ago

> I am not sure why you are saying Microsoft transformed, its still the same old one now trying to embrace Linux I'm one of those persons who upsold friends, families and at least one boss on to use Linux. I'm not a business analyst but I can say that Microsoft has transformed. I still prefer Linux as does a number of fellow sysadmins and developers, but Microsoft has changed to the point where they are not a problem to us anymore. Azure portal works equally well from Firefox on Linux as from Internet Explorer or Edge on Windows. > as it runs as the main workload on Azure instead of windows. This is just done for survival, otherwise Microsoft would have gone to irrelevance. The best reason for transformation in fact: because the subject realizes it is in their own best interest to change and it improves their situation. > Windows and Office licenses are still the main driver for Microsoft, just with accounting tricks and office 360 made into cloud revenues. I don't know. > This is an investor story to jack up the stocks. They are no better than google when it comes to platform lock-in. On top of it having used Azure services, I can say without a doubt its inferior to Amazon and Google cloud experience. I've used Amazon (two years, narrow experience) and Google Cloud (two years, broader but possibly shallower experience, certified) and now Azure lately. So far, inferior is not the word I would use. I'd possibly stick with different or something neutral.

sdfdswt346 7y ago

Well, .NET Core and their approach to Open Source is what makes "new MS" decent (from my pov)

scarface74 7y ago

Office 360 hasn’t been a part of cloud revenues in years. .Net Core is open source and available for Macs and Linux. It’s almost 5 years old now.