I recently had dinner in Bellevue with an individual who holds a relatively senior position within Microsoft’s executive leadership. During our conversation, she emphasized repeatedly that Microsoft does not primarily view its offerings as consumer products. According to her, the company’s leadership is strongly focused on B2B strategy, with revenue growth driven mainly by Azure, AI, and enterprise solutions. Her perspective was that consumer-facing products are not the primary revenue drivers and, therefore, are not central to executive priorities. While this may not be surprising to some, what stood out to me was how emphatically she underscored that the company’s strategic focus is squarely on enterprise customers rather than end users.

That said, this business model has historically proven effective for companies such as IBM. Microsoft allocates its resources toward segments that offer meaningful revenue growth.

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10000truths 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Windows' value is as a funnel to the Microsoft platform. Starving that funnel of attention might not have an immediate effect, but it's a slow death spiral for the company because it cannibalizes their long-term mind share. The 10-year-olds today who grow up using Chromebooks in school, Macbooks in college, and iPhones/Android phones in their daily lives, will end up investing in Google and Apple products as a working adult at home or at the office. The one remaining moat that Windows has over other operating systems is games and old software, but with Valve hard at work to get Steam games working on Linux, this last bastion of Microsoft's consumer presence is under attack as well.

	▲	xp84 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> The 10-year-olds today who grow up using Chromebooks in school, Macbooks in college, and iPhones/Android phones in their daily lives, will end up investing in Google and Apple products as a working adult at home or at the office. 1. That's not how businesses work - the 10-year-old will be 28 when he becomes an IT manager, and their 40yo boss will say "LOL no, learn to use Active Directory, we're not switching the entire company to Chromebooks/MacBook Neos because you 'grew up with' them." They will then adapt and learn to use what the business has. 2. Even assuming charitably that our 10yo will be founding a company one day and making all purchasing decisions for themselves, it's worth pointing out that neither Google nor especially Apple has shown even slight interest in delivering "Enterprise" anything. Even MDM Apple farms out to third parties, likewise they have no realistic counterpart for Active Directory, nor business email or collaboration (at least Google has that though). A startup may be all-Mac. Eventually if it's successful though, it'll be too big to use 'consumer' tools only. The MacBook Neo is a cute PC for a student or a grandma or indeed any casual user. But despite it giving Apple (for the first time in Apple's existence) a price point for an entire computer that's under the amount where you'd be embarrassed to propose adopting it for your whole fleet... the hardware is but one part of a larger ecosystem, and Apple has demonstrated that they have no interest into selling into "The Enterprise" except for tiny niches (relative to the whole PC market) such as "web and mobile" software engineers, video editors, VFX shops etc.

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hyperhello 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I recently saw this comment. You made it a few weeks ago, copy and paste identical.

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mholm 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not OP, but I've got a friend of a friend in the Windows org that backs this up. Most engineers are teamed up by manufacturers. HP team, Lenovo team, etc. These are the primary drivers of feature development. If it won't sell grandma another $500 HP laptop, they're not interested.

	▲	DoctorDabadedoo 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's B2B/Enterprise in the driver's seat to keep revenue coming. Usability and polishing of the products is locked in the trunk of the car. source: been there.
	▲	jm4 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Interesting. Sounds not too much unlike Linux.

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natas 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’ve included this here because it’s highly relevant to the discussion. That said, anything not closely tied to revenue will not be prioritized, which limits the impact of this microsoft post.

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xbar 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I noticed that, too. However, I will say that having a couple weeks to watch Microsoft through the lens of the original post, I am inclined to adopt it as my current model for Microsoft's actual agenda.

As a result, I do not currently think that Microsoft is consumer-oriented. They have reinforced my opinion by doing anti-consumer changes in XBOX and then saying that they were pro-gamer. Seems like a pattern.

Maybe they will prove me wrong; I am sun-setting my final host that's running their software soon.

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itsfine2 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47223342

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throwaway5752 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This sounds exactly like how IBM sounded 50 years ago, before Microsoft disrupted them.

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naikrovek 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is a fantastic reason to ditch Windows.

Windows used to be built for the user. Now, Microsoft builds it for themselves, as a way to help hardware partners sell hardware which includes a windows license.

So if Microsoft makes Windows for their own benefit, and not for the users benefit, I see no reason to use it at all. I don’t like games that much.

MacOS has gone downhill in a hurry but it’s still very good. Far better than Windows for me in every way.

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HaZeust an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've seen almost this exact comment before, have you shared this anecdote before?

	▲	an hour ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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reaperducer 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

the company’s strategic focus is squarely on enterprise customers rather than end users

Yet it was the end users that forced enterprise to embrace the iPhone, not the other way around.

If her vision was the only driver, we'd still be rocking Blackberries.