I made a joke once to my boss that the day is coming very quickly when a kid is going to enter the workforce, and on her first day she'll ask, "why does the com

I made a joke once to my boss that the day is coming very quickly when a kid is going to enter the workforce, and on her first day she'll ask, "why does the company that makes the Xbox also make spreadsheet software?" The reality today is that Microsoft does not have the engineering talent that they used to have, and their design talent has been completely drained. They simply are not a 21st century software company anymore. The marketplace perception of Microsoft now is that they are a dinosaur that also makes a gaming console. Period. They may very well have a functional competitor to EC2, but I cannot think of one serious company that is choosing Azure over AWS, or Rackspace, or even Digital Ocean or Heroku. The Azure Case Studies page is an absolute joke, a mockery of what you would expect from a behemoth as Microsoft. The simple fact is that Amazon completely owns the market that Microsoft is trying to break into. (This is especially funny given the years 1992-1996) They may very well have a functional competitor to Google Docs/Drive/Apps/whatever it's called now, but again, Google is totally dominating that market (crappy updates to Gmail aside). Microsoft is stuck on the outside looking in, and anyone who is starting a company, given the choice between Office 365 and Google Apps, they aren't picking Office anymore. Windows Phone is a joke and I'm not going to devote any more words to it. Windows 8 isn't even worth any discussion. The reality is, is that as kids in college today enter the workforce with their Android or iPhone, and Gmail/Gdrive, and knowledge of AWS, the need for Microsoft (which you have to admit, MS has been coasting on for probably 15-20 years now) is evaporating. If all Microsoft ever tries to do now is play catchup to Amazon, Google, and Apple, they're won't necessarily be squashed, but they'll just become irrelevant.