Satya Nadella denies Xbox death rumors, insists Microsoft is "long on gaming"

[LimyG]

Except what they're doing here is different. Usually, their "embrace, extend, extinguish" philosophy of market dominance only applies to external influences. They endorse a company or IP, bring it into their wheelhouse and then toss it aside like any old desecated husk when they are finished.

Xbox isn't an outside influence. They're not absorbing something they didn't already own. They made Xbox, just like they made Windows, and now, they're actively destroying both. In any other company, this would be considered brand suicide. But, this is Microsoft we're talking about. They're not some scrappy, VC-funded startup that just launched last year. They've got a storied history and at the very least, they've always been "corporate first". They've never been "customer last". It seems to me that they're cloud-first approach, where everything is a dumb client that interfaces wtih a supercomputer, like this is the 1980s and they just launched DOS, hinges on people simply deciding that they don't feel like "owning" computers anymore and simply want to rent space on Microsoft's servers forever.

That is seemingly the desired goal. Copilot would work best, if every computer was just a Microsoft Chromebook. But, that's also regress, a downgrade. It's like taking peoples' cars away, after building out nothing but roads and interstate highways for 50 years. Nadella doesn't understand the contradiction. He honestly seems to think his customer base finds "ownership" archaic, as if he's doing them a favor. "They're not losing technology, they're gaining AI assistants. All it requires is that people relinquish everything they have. Isn't that a small price to pay for 'the future of computing?'"

So, you mean you are not aware of MS general strategy? Seems to me you are.

 

[acrossthestars]

So, you mean you are not aware of MS general strategy? Seems to me you are.

I understand their methodology, but I don't understand their goal here. As I alluded to, I am aware that they embrace a new technology, they extend their support and then the extinguish the existing company as they bring it into the fold. But, this destruction has usually been about other products, not their existing stack. Why would they apply this method to themselves? Unless they intend to reconstitute their entire business structure from scratch, if Copilot fails, I don't understand what they expect to accomplish. I'm starting to believe they don't know, either. Every attempt to "revaluate their business strategy' is just code for "doubling down on the thing they intended to do, but with even more gusto".

Like, I truly think Satya has no idea what he's going to do, if "AI Superintelligence" doesn't pan out and Microsoft's entire software stack gets banned from both private and public industry, for being a nuisance and a security hazard. Under his tenure, Mr. Nadella has single-handedly helmed the destruction of every single product business once held sacred. The reputational damage is also irreversible, at this point; there is no "plan B". He's bet everything on "cloud" and "AI", and hired executives focused on that goal exclusively―to the detriment of everything else. I'm pretty sure he's convinced that Copilot is the cumulative result of his life's work as CEO (because it kinda is, if the goal is turning every product in to a service that runs on servers, with AI being the thing that facilitates the service), making it the fulcrum of Microsoft's entire product portfolio.

So if his plans don't work out, then...I guess the company goes bankrupt?

 

[LimyG]

I understand their methodology, but I don't understand their goal here. As I alluded to, I am aware that they embrace a new technology, they extend their support and then the extinguish the existing company as they bring it into the fold. But, this destruction has usually been about other products, not their existing stack. Why would they apply this method to themselves? Unless they intend to reconstitute their entire business structure from scratch, if Copilot fails, I don't understand what they expect to accomplish. I'm starting to believe they don't know, either. Every attempt to "revaluate their business strategy' is just code for "doubling down on the thing they intended to do, but with even more gusto".

Like, I truly think Satya has no idea what he's going to do, if "AI Superintelligence" doesn't pan out and Microsoft's entire software stack gets banned from both private and public industry, for being a nuisance and a security hazard. Under his tenure, Mr. Nadella has single-handedly helmed the destruction of every single product business once held sacred. The reputational damage is also irreversible, at this point; there is no "plan B". He's bet everything on "cloud" and "AI", and hired executives focused on that goal exclusively―to the detriment of everything else. I'm pretty sure he's convinced that Copilot is the cumulative result of his life's work as CEO (because it kinda is, if the goal is turning every product in to a service that runs on servers, with AI being the thing that facilitates the service), making it the fulcrum of Microsoft's entire product portfolio.

So if his plans don't work out, then...I guess the company goes bankrupt?

Hey, thanks for the explanation. Good points, all well put. I agree with your take, all of it in fact. Especially the paragraph about, Sataya!