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Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

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Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#71

Post by lateforwork »

Hasz wrote: post #57
outside1234 wrote: post #8

Microsoft has a problem that they hire the middle block of talent in the market. They do not chase the top 20% most expensive nor the bottom 20% least expensive. But this also means they end up with average products. They don't have the talent to do something exceptional. This has worked well for them when they can just come in and copy something (say AWS in Azure) and not pay the innovation cost, but AI seems differ…

this is just not true. Building great products with average talent is a sign of great management, and it's been done before in both business and sports. moneyball is about this idea at some level. Plenty of SV is building below average products with exceptional talent.

> Building great products

This is where they are failing.

> Plenty of SV is building below average products with exceptional talent.

Yes, you can hire exceptional talent and give them poor directions, resulting in poor products.

But to hire mediocre talent and still produce competitive products you must have an unfair advantage of some sort. The Windows and Office monopolies gave Microsoft that unfair advantage. But it is becoming clear that this unfair advantage does not extend to AI.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#73

Post by geodel »

drcongo wrote: post #34
janlukacs wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it fascinating how they are able to sell their crap software.

My theory is that they deliberately make Windows so shit to filter out anyone with taste. Once you have a userbase of people who don't know better, you can sell them any old crap. Like Teams.

Reminds of an research article from Microsoft!. It detailed on why scam emails about `Nigerian prince` are so obviously dumb. The reasoning being it specifically need to target only those who can fall for it. Anything more sophisticated and they would get people who wouldn't fall for scam in subsequent communication.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#74

Post by cezart »

saubeidl wrote: post #42
coldpie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is a public company. That means their primary product is not products or services, it's their stock. Selling products & services can be an advertisement for their stock, but there are other methods of convincing people to buy their stock, too. Currently the stock market only wants stocks that have "AI" associated with them. It doesn't matter whether users like it or not, because having a viable business is…

Maybe the stock market is not a good system to organize ones economy around then?

I've been thinking about this recently. The centrality of the stock market, while historically a great tool to allocate resources efficiently, might actually be a big weakness for the USA today. A capable adversary, like China, can kill entire strategic sectors in the US using the stock market. If they undercut the US companies and are willing to accept low returns on their investments, then the respective USA competition will be driven out of business by their investors, because there will be other sectors to invest in, with higher RoI. Do this at various points in strategic value chains, and over a decade or so it might kill entire verticals in strategic sectors, leaving the US economy vulnerable to any kinds of shocks.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#75

Post by throw310822 »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #62

Well, the major problem Microsoft is facing is that its AI products are not only shoddier than average , which is nothing new for them in many categories, but that this time the competition can actually easily leapfrog them. Like, I have a 'Copilot' button prominently displayed in my New Outlook on MacOS (the only platform where the app-with-that-designation is sort-of usable), and it's a dropdown menu, and it has...…

The other day I've clicked on one of Outlook calendar's copilot prefilled questions: "who are the main attendees of this meeting". It started a long winding speech that went nowhere, so I typed in "but WHO are the attendees" and finally it admitted "I don't know, I can't see that".

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#76

Post by drcongo »

geodel wrote: post #73
drcongo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that they deliberately make Windows so shit to filter out anyone with taste. Once you have a userbase of people who don't know better, you can sell them any old crap. Like Teams.

Reminds of an research article from Microsoft!. It detailed on why scam emails about `Nigerian prince` are so obviously dumb. The reasoning being it specifically need to target only those who can fall for it. Anything more sophisticated and they would get people who wouldn't fall for scam in subsequent communication.

That's exactly what I was thinking of!

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#77

Post by coldpie »

watwut wrote: post #52
coldpie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is a public company. That means their primary product is not products or services, it's their stock. Selling products & services can be an advertisement for their stock, but there are other methods of convincing people to buy their stock, too. Currently the stock market only wants stocks that have "AI" associated with them. It doesn't matter whether users like it or not, because having a viable business is…

That is not what stock market is. A company does not have to focus on stock price and stock price is not its primary product.

That's fair, I should reframe. The incentive given to decision makers at Microsoft is company stock. That means the primary focus for everyone who makes decisions at Microsoft is the stock price, which in turn means the stock price is the primary product for the company itself.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#78

Post by mrweasel »

saubeidl wrote: post #42
coldpie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is a public company. That means their primary product is not products or services, it's their stock. Selling products & services can be an advertisement for their stock, but there are other methods of convincing people to buy their stock, too. Currently the stock market only wants stocks that have "AI" associated with them. It doesn't matter whether users like it or not, because having a viable business is…

Maybe the stock market is not a good system to organize ones economy around then?

The stock market weirdly enough ruins the idea of capitalism. Catering to shareholders hurts the idea that competition would create better and cheaper products.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#79

Post by dboreham »

neilalexander wrote: post #10

I would think that if they actually spent the time and money fixing the core functionality of their core products (like Windows and Office) that they might have a much easier time promoting things like Copilot. Instead they leave their users wondering why they're so hell-bent on shoehorning AI into a Start menu that takes whole seconds longer to open than it should or into Windows Search that regularly fails to find…

Nobody gets a bonus and a new boat doing that.
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