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There's a really good chance this is a "new" Microsoft. Gates and Ballmer were the "old school" Microsoft that only thought that obstructing the competition was the best path to success. The new CEO Satya Nadela built the Azure platform, the most "open" technology that Microsoft has. His mantra is "mobile first, cloud first". This outlook is the opposite of Ballmer's, which was to drive everybody back to Windows. Mic…
Ok... but we've seen this new, better Microsoft behavior for like 2 or 3 years while they've been in a pretty down or leveled position after a history of bad behavior dating back to basically their inception. Have they genuinely changed or are they just being forced by their new market positions to behave better? None of your examples point to a MS doing things for the right reasons and trying to regain trust, they p…
Microsoft picked Satya because they were backed into a corner, but everything I've seen from this man tells me he's the real deal and believes that a multi-platform strategy is the right then and the best way to earn revenue. However, as with any company, expect them to have a bias towards things that will make them the most money. At the present time and the foreseeable future, for me, it appears that the interests of Microsoft are in alignment with the interests of users of all platforms.
If they gain the dominant or monopoly position in something again...what would that be, and in what decade do you suggest it will happen? If holographic computing somehow takes off, that appears to be the only place where they are positioned to lead a market in the near future.
If it's a question of Apple or Microsoft, Microsoft appears to be the good guy these days, as Apple is still building their walled garden. Microsoft is being a major contributor to Open Source code though. Everything on the new Microsoft stack is getting open sourced as quickly as possible. They make the best commercial software tool in the world for making software (Visual Studio), and it is particularly adept at deploying .NET software, so they are opening that up to the world to get .NET in as many places as people want it. They are also opening up Visual Studio to a variety of languages, and making it a development tool for cross platform development for iOS and Android. They want to sell Visual Studio.
Trust takes time though. Keep your eye on them and compare Microsoft to their peers, you may be surprised by what you see.