[logn]

What they mean is that in the face of criticism exactly such as yours, that Microsoft will not revert to server-closet, workstation first in order to keep the easy flow of cash coming. Think AOL at the start of the broadband era. Microsoft doesn't want to become a mindless machine with ever dwindling returns.

[marcosdumay]

Funny thing.

Has the cloud market already become larger than the server market? And has the mobile market already become larger than the desktop/laptop market?

I ask because there are always lots of markets that appear, grow like crazy, stealing money from another related market, and then saturate, without ever getting bigger than the original one. The trend we saw in computers - where every new generation brings a cheaper incumbent that plainly wins is an exception, not the rule.

I'd be quite open about a new generation of computers being an exception again, I even tought they'd be for a while. But there is no way the mobile (phones + tablet) market will grow a lot anymore. How many phones does a person need? The cloud (IaS) market has space to grow, but so do servers, and each has its own set of advantajes, thus there's no reason to imagine that the cloud will "win" while servers "lose".

[logn]

I think that the cloud will win, if only because it's the logical first step for any small customer (which you can later up-sell). And large customers will be won over when you tell them they never have to upgrade again and that uptime/security is guaranteed by an SLA. Businesses love eliminating liability and risk, and theoretically the cloud can win on both counts.

Also, I think mobile-first will win via the web and because mobile is the lowest common denominator (you can put a qwerty keyboard and browser on any full computer).

My $.02 though, it's a huge gamble for Microsoft to beat others in this space. If I were Microsoft I'd be buying Pandora, Redbox, Sirius XM, expanding MSNBC, and putting more into Xbox. That space is all about negotiating with parties and exploiting your dominance, which they've proved to be masters at over the years. For Microsoft to win in the cloud and mobile, I think they need to embrace open source and common platforms similar to IBM and Oracle, and I think they can never summon that desire.