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> I tend to see Windows and Office as fundamentally the same business though, along with development tools, i What? Windows, Office ( cross-platform since rece

> I tend to see Windows and Office as fundamentally the same business though, along with development tools, i What? Windows, Office ( cross-platform since recently) and dev tools are totally different cash cows. The ring of death ( = console) isn't even related to the cash cow in consoles. It's the 30% commission on 60€ games. Anti-competitive behavior for not releasing it to other platforms in the past, doesn't mean it's "just an add-on".

simonh 5y ago
>What? Windows, Office ( cross-platform since recently) and dev tools are totally different cash cows. Office for Windows was released in the same year as Windows 3.0, supporting all the new core technologies including OLE. Before then MS desktop software products were also-rans. From this point on they dominated, because they had been engineered natively for Windows right alongside the development of Windows itself before any of their competitors even had access to the frameworks and dev tools, or Windows 3.0 to develop and test on. It was part of a single coherent integrated platform strategy for Windows. Now it's grown beyond the platform, but the reason it matters is because of it's privileged position on the Windows platform. XBox just doesn't matter. It's not big enough. If it died, Microsoft's bottom line would barely shift. Office does matter, we just see it's strategic position differently.
- zeusk 5y ago
  > It was part of a single coherent integrated platform strategy for Windows. Now it's grown beyond the platform, but the reason it matters is because of it's privileged position on the Windows platform. Just like iOS and Apple apps or Chrome and Google sites? > XBox just doesn't matter. It's not big enough. If it died, Microsoft's bottom line would barely shift. Office does matter, we just see it's strategic position differently. xbox was $3.5B (8.5%) of the $41B revenue last quarter - not sure why you think that wouldn't affect bottom line or understand the fact that gaming/xbox is a growth business with a recognizable brand. To give you a perspective, xbox alone made more than all apple services except for App store (even then the difference isn't that huge).
  - simonh 5y ago
    Is it existential in the way that Windows is, or AWS is for Amazon, or iPhone is for Apple, or search ad revenue is for Google? That’s what I’m talking about.

simonh 5y ago

>What? Windows, Office ( cross-platform since recently) and dev tools are totally different cash cows. Office for Windows was released in the same year as Windows 3.0, supporting all the new core technologies including OLE. Before then MS desktop software products were also-rans. From this point on they dominated, because they had been engineered natively for Windows right alongside the development of Windows itself before any of their competitors even had access to the frameworks and dev tools, or Windows 3.0 to develop and test on. It was part of a single coherent integrated platform strategy for Windows. Now it's grown beyond the platform, but the reason it matters is because of it's privileged position on the Windows platform. XBox just doesn't matter. It's not big enough. If it died, Microsoft's bottom line would barely shift. Office does matter, we just see it's strategic position differently.

zeusk 5y ago
> It was part of a single coherent integrated platform strategy for Windows. Now it's grown beyond the platform, but the reason it matters is because of it's privileged position on the Windows platform. Just like iOS and Apple apps or Chrome and Google sites? > XBox just doesn't matter. It's not big enough. If it died, Microsoft's bottom line would barely shift. Office does matter, we just see it's strategic position differently. xbox was $3.5B (8.5%) of the $41B revenue last quarter - not sure why you think that wouldn't affect bottom line or understand the fact that gaming/xbox is a growth business with a recognizable brand. To give you a perspective, xbox alone made more than all apple services except for App store (even then the difference isn't that huge).
- simonh 5y ago
  Is it existential in the way that Windows is, or AWS is for Amazon, or iPhone is for Apple, or search ad revenue is for Google? That’s what I’m talking about.