3 ms·
Yes, Azure. It's developed into a good offering and I'm pleased for them that they're doing well. But, there was a time when Microsoft entering a market would
by d4nt 13y ago
Yes, Azure. It's developed into a good offering and I'm pleased for them that they're doing well.
But, there was a time when Microsoft entering a market would send all the existing players running for the hills. They used their OS dominance to control what software OEMs installed and killed off every desktop software competitor they ever had. Your best hope was to sell your company to them. But they couldn't do that with the phone, tablet, search or cloud markets. They've built some good products and some of them are doing ok, but they haven't had the kind of automatic win in those markets that those of us around in the 90s remember.
- mathattack 13y agoTheir dominance over Netscape scared a lot of people. "What if Microsoft comes in and gives everything away for free to keep the OS monopoly?" was a legit fear. Gates was simultaneously a product master, and very competitive. Sometime between then and now people stopped fearing them. Maybe it was the delays in getting products out? Or false starts? Or that they just started playing nicer? Nobody is close to unseating them on the desktop, but the excitement is everywhere else.