4 ms·
I'd say that Microsoft's moat was the copyright law and ability to bully the hardware companies with exclusive distribution contracts. Writing a new DOS (or Wi
by silvestrov 2y ago
I'd say that Microsoft's moat was the copyright law and ability to bully the hardware companies with exclusive distribution contracts.
Writing a new DOS (or Windows 3) from scratch is something a lot of developers could do.
They just couldn't do it legally.
And thus it was easy to bully Compaq and others into only distributing PCs with DOS/Windows installed. For some time you even had to pay the Microsoft fee when you wanted a PC with Linux installed.
- Schiendelman 2y agoIf this was their most important moat for you, what is their moat now that it is gone?
- immibis 2y agoThey don't have one, which is why they're struggling to maintain market share. They run solely on brand loyalty, and slightly on competing with AWS and GCP to sell server hosting to people with more money than sense.
- Schiendelman 2y agoSo you believe they became the most valuable company in the world (a few times recently though Apple is currently 13% ahead) with no moat? That's an interesting take. Is it possible you just don't know much about them?
- immibis 2y agoThe stock market is objectively quite stupid. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply with this.