> A lot of them are just kids who memorized some CompTIA exams and don't really know what they're doing.
Well, this is true throughout IT, even those who went to college for a CS or IT-based degrees. People want to make money, and IT has been a safe haven so far to do so.
Yep, it's mostly this. Especially for businesses under 300 users, you get Exchange, EntraID, Defender EDR, InTune(MDM) + the Teams/SharePoint/OneDrive/Copilot all integrated for $22/user/month. For a little extra you get a half way decent PBX for VoIP too.
If you tried to piece all that together yourself with different services, then integrate them to the same level, it's going to cost a hell of a lot more than that.
Microsoft is smart too, as none of that requires Windows either. Even of these companies switched to Linux or macOS en masse, they'd still be using Microsoft.
Plus, there's still no competitor to Excel for business types. We might be able to use Google Sheets to great effectiveness, but the finance department at the behemoths can't. The world runs on Excel, like it or not.
> A lot of them are just kids who memorized some CompTIA exams and don't really know what they're doing.
This is true for all fields not just tech/IT. Competent windows sysadmin work nowadays isn't all that different from macOS endpoints or Linux. Everything can be scripted/automated with PowerShell, or just using the Graph API for 365 stuff. You can effectively manage a windows environment and never touch a GUI if you don't want to.
Microsoft usually isn't the best at anything, but what they excel at is being "good enough" and checking boxes.
I mean, think about it - most companies are still stuck on Windows 10 or 11, and they're using all those Microsoft services like Teams, Outlook, and Exchange. It's like they're trapped in this Microsoft ecosystem, and it's gonna take a lot more than just a few people saying "hey, let's switch to Linux" to get them out of it.
And don't even get me started on the IT departments in these places. A lot of them are just kids who memorized some CompTIA exams and don't really know what they're doing. They're using Windows 11 at home, but they have no idea how to deal with all the outdated Windows 7 machines that are still being used in manufacturing.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has been really smart about this. They've managed to get their products and services woven into the fabric of how we do business on a global scale. It's gonna take a lot more than just a few open-source projects to change that.