[garganzol]

Microsoft is a pale shade of its former self. Many argue that Ballmer departure was a good thing™. But I am sure it was the tipping point for a progressing irrelevancy. The situation is unlikely to change any time soon. Microsoft is bloodless and dying.

Azure brings them cool money now, but that's a temporary thing. Fast forward some years and they will degenerate into a hosting company.

Why? Because software is the king. The cost of software distribution is negligible, and hardware is commodity.

How? Imagine Kubernetes + Digital Ocean combo. Are they a big threat to Azure? Not at all. Digital Ocean is sweet and beloved, but Kubernetes is hard and clunky.

Now imagine a piece of software that eliminates all deficiencies. Let's call it The Killer. Now we have The Killer + Digital Ocean combo vs Azure. And not only Digital Ocean participates, take any other VPS or cloud-rental company. Take any other computer in the world.

Azure the Goliath will be defeated by millions of Davids in a blink of an eye.

Microsoft the company is going to face a harsh reality. And given the direction it follows today, it will have negligible chances of survival by then.