From everyone I know on the inside, I think the sentiment is genuine this time.
Microsoft is in the IBM position of 1985. IBM made a bunch of crucial missteps because they saw the PC as part of a larger mainframe and minicomputer strategy and was unwilling to cater to the microcomputer customer as just a microcomputer customer.
So they were blinded and dropped the ball a bunch.
Microsoft, like IBM in the 80s doesn't have full stack monopoly anymore. But unlike IBM, they have admitted this and most importantly that they can't claw it back. IBM ran off to fairytale land trying to claw things back with OS/2, the MCA bus, and their line of PS/2 workstations.
Microsoft knows this well, they built the first versions of OS/2 for IBM.
Like a good general who studies the battles of the past, they're trying to do the early Apple/early Google strategy: make good products and get developers to be enthusiastic about them.
Their will be new marketing opportunities opening in the future and their job is to position themselves to capture it.
They won't get there by pretending like it's still 1998.
Microsoft is in the IBM position of 1985. IBM made a bunch of crucial missteps because they saw the PC as part of a larger mainframe and minicomputer strategy and was unwilling to cater to the microcomputer customer as just a microcomputer customer.
So they were blinded and dropped the ball a bunch.
Microsoft, like IBM in the 80s doesn't have full stack monopoly anymore. But unlike IBM, they have admitted this and most importantly that they can't claw it back. IBM ran off to fairytale land trying to claw things back with OS/2, the MCA bus, and their line of PS/2 workstations.
Microsoft knows this well, they built the first versions of OS/2 for IBM.
Like a good general who studies the battles of the past, they're trying to do the early Apple/early Google strategy: make good products and get developers to be enthusiastic about them.
Their will be new marketing opportunities opening in the future and their job is to position themselves to capture it.
They won't get there by pretending like it's still 1998.