Re:Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores
by deanCommie on Friday June 26, 2020 @02:53PM
(#23655548)
None of these products were for consumers.
Even on the business side, Microsoft never understood or cared about their users (besides maybe Word and Excel users), and marketed towards CEOs and COMPANIES.
see: Sharepoint which is the most financially successful Microsoft product ever, yet every end user despises it.
They never tried or cared to work backwards from a consumer user or what they wanted, they just started from "how do we make billions of dollars from licensing fees".
Weak take. Microsoft was very active with numerous mobile offerings -- Pen Computing, Windows Mobile, Tablet and Embedded Windows. You can debate why they ultimately failed -- too early, insufficient hardware, too Windows-centric -- but @billg was never content just "collecting rent" and not innovating, especially in mobile, internet, and connectivity.
Your bias is obvious when you describe MSFT as "collecting rent" (negative connotation) and AAPL as "rewarded with profits" (positive).