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0 pointsethbr12y ago0 comments

Microsoft minted many fortunes by leaving valuable profit margins around for third party developers.

It's a longer game, so hopefully ARM employees still own some equity.

0 comments

Where are these third party developers that made decent money and Microsoft didn’t subsequently try to eat their piece of the pie?

It is a repeated pattern and people are not stupid. (See also the Sherlock phenomenon with Apple). Valve, for example, have to invest in proton as the ultimate back up plan. For me personally that has proven quite helpful, but your initial business has to be wildly successful for you to be able to play defensive moves like that.

This leads to a situation where mid sized companies are few in number and unstable.

bemusedthrow752y ago

> and Microsoft didn’t subsequently try to eat their piece of the pie?

That second part wasn't in the original claim, though. The parent comment is right. Sure, 21st century Microsoft has come for the utilities market, for the Lotus-to-Evernote market, etc., etc., but an entire software industry really did spring up in the eighties through to the early 2000s filling gaps in Microsoft software.

ethbr1OP2y ago

Oracle, SAP, Adobe, VMware, Intuit, AutoDesk, Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, Electronic Arts, just to list a few still surviving companies.

Microsoft absolutely expands into areas it considers strategic profit or capability centers. E.g. office productivity, web browser, database, gaming, etc.

But they, and especially early/smaller Microsoft (90s-00s), left a ton of money on the table for the good of the platform. Because they realized they couldn't do it all and be best-of-everything.

The fact that Microsoft can deploy its level of resources (e.g. crush Lotus) when they decide to doesn't mean that they always decide to.

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