tech_traveller

For the longest time I have written off Microsoft as being far behind Apple and Google and I didn't actually consider them a proper contender to either.

They don't have the aspirational appeal of Apple nor the software chops of Google. In fact, their UI is often very cluttered and overly complex.

However, in recent years they have become the safest tech company to bet on. People who are familiar with Microsoft's antitrust cases from way back will find it funny that the companies that were against Microsoft such as Apple and Google, are now being charged for the same things that they accused Microsoft for.

Microsoft's office suite still remains the default, their cloud services has a lot of potential even more than AWS(the current leader), Windows is the only PC choice for the majority of people (no programmer is going to buy a Chromebook and not everyone can afford a Mac), the recent game studio acquisitions has been slowly dethroning Sony and making Windows the only real PC gaming environment. Google started the cloud gaming market yet dropped out( they do this a lot...) and now Microsoft is carrying that with Xbox pass.

They don't have the same revenue dependency on ads and therefore don't have much to fear over new privacy regulations, they also don't have 50% of their revenue dependent on one product, such as iPhones for Apple.

They are also currently the leaders at AI along with Google, so I think they are future proofed too.

The only place they are lagging at is on the mobile market and I don't think they are going to succeed there as Apple and Google have grown too big in that space, but only time will tell, you never know with a company as big as them. Ever since Satya Nadella became CEO, Microsoft has been a different beast, making one right decision after another and he is arguably the best thing that happened to Microsoft.