[avgd]

> so complex that even Microsoft, the king of this rube goldberg type shit, threw in the towel and said eff it, we’ll just use Chromium

I believe the core reason to be different: Microsoft lost the will to compete.

You can say any number of negative things about Steve Ballmer, but at least the guy tried. He tried. He may fail, but he would try, again and again, no matter how many time he would experience losses.

When he got replaced by a bean counter Microsoft stopped trying. It isn't just browser engines they've abandoned. There is no Windows Phone anymore. Windows 11 is worse on tablets than 10. Closing down their Apple Music competitor (Groove) etc.

Recently, they've been arguing for less exclusivity on gaming consoles and releasing their games on Playstation.

If we anthropomorphized corporations, modern Microsoft is the thin skinned loser who will fold at the slightest provocation.

[scarface_74]

Why should Microsoft care about making its own engine? Apple does it because it needs to optimize a browser for its platforms where if makes all of its money. Google does it for ad revenue and to make sure its web apps run well. What’s Microsoft’s motivation?

There is no world no matter how much money Microsoft spent that it was going to out Apple Apple when it came to selling phones or convince manufactures to use Windows Mobile instead of Android with a lot larger third party app ecosystem.

Windows is not irrelevant. But it’s not where the growth is. Neither is selling phones really. Both of those markets are saturated. What benefit is their of Microsoft focusing on its own engine instead of using Chromium?

Tablets were overhyped. Even Apple realize that and publicly admitted more or less they took their eye off the ball and came back and started refocusing on the Mac in 2018. Google has basically abandoned any tablets and is focusing on ChromeOS.

The entire business model of selling subscription music and giving the label 70% of revenue is horrible. Spotify isn’t exactly a raging success. Apple Music exists as an ecosystem play to work well with their other devices as was iTunes before for selling iPods. Do you remember the disaster of the Plays4Sure platform and then the Zune?

Microsoft was right to focus on selling O365 everywhere and Azure.

[avgd]

Are you seriously asking why Microsoft, the company that has experienced what it means to have power over others (anti competitive practices of the 90s on Windows that led to the United States v. Microsoft Corp. case), should not let Google have total control over what the web should be? should not let Google and Apple be the sole deciders of what should be in the appstore of the most used computing device of the planet?

> Apple Music exists as an ecosystem play

And so? Are you implying MS doesn't need an ecosystem of their own?

MS has. stopped. competing. That's it. That's all. Azure is not a moat, it's highly profitable but it also highly prone for disruption. Office is all they have left.

Man, they don't even need to have as much marketshare as Apple for their presence to be meaningful in the mobile market. They just need enough to be sustainable on their own and keep the competitors "honest".

The more MS transitions to cloud stuff and browser based apps the more they become Google's sharecroppers. It is NOT a good thing for markets to consolidate as much as they have over the past decades.

[caspper69]

Hey, I have a healthy respect for Ballmer (1600 SATs, advanced math degree from Harvard).

I don’t hate MS at all. They made me a good living when I was getting started. They actually spread the wealth (for small and medium sized shops at least).

My post was meant to be an indictment of Google.

This whole html/css layout shit with js sprinkled on top is nothing but a giant moat. Complexity for complexity’s sake.

You could render resolution independent vector art & text with pixel perfect layout orders of magnitude more efficiently. It’d be printable too.

It just laughable to be honest.