Comment by markus_zhang
2 days ago
I’d say, they are very good at making platforms and grab everyone lock-in. But they need a good platform first. Azure seems like the first platform that is kinda shitty from the beginning and did not improve much.
MBASIC was good and filled a void so it got used widely from the beginning. The language is their first platform. Later the developer tools like the IDE, compilers, still pretty solid if you ask me.
MS-DOS and Windows are their next platform. It started OK with DOS — because CP/M was not great either. But the stability of Windows sucked so they brought in David Cutler’s team to make NT. It definitely grabbed the home/office market but didn’t do well for the server market.
X-BOX is their third platform, which started very well but we all know the story now.
Azure is their fourth platform, started shitty and still not good. The other platforms have high vintage points but Azure may not have one.
Those are mostly end-user or hosting platforms you mention (and their problems), what really makes MS tick is the enterprise platforms.
Windows networks, Active Directory,etc. Azure is the continuation of that, those who run AD oftne default to Azure (that offers among other things hosted or hybrid AD environments).
Yeah those too, sorry I never worked with the MSFT stack in corporate, except for my first company when my IT knowledge was still minimum.