Microsoft isn’t the flashiest company out of all the tech companies out there. They don’t release an expensive new phone every year. Microsoft doesn’t loudly make a change. In the background, they slowly make changes. You don’t notice it until everything just works better.
Booting up
Back in 1975, Microsoft was just a BASIC idea. Literally. It was just Bill Gates and Paul Allen building a version of the BASIC programming language for the Altair 8800, one of the first personal computers that you could get.
Then the scrappy startup hustle became the foundation for Microsoft. By the early 80s, Microsoft was licensing its MS-DOS operating system to IBM. Then after that came the reality that we all know: the time that Windows was born. Making a graphical interface above the DOS system they had already made. While Apple was focusing on design and integration, Microsoft focused on volume. They licensed Windows to a ton of manufacturers, making computers more accessible to the household of an average person.
Throughout the late 90s, Microsoft became unstoppable. Microsoft Office became the gold standard for office productivity. Internet Explorer dominated browsing. And Bill Gates became rich.
Losing the signal
But every system hits a crash.
By 2009, Microsoft missed the mobile era. While Apple, Google, and Samsung were all building revolutionary tech, Microsoft had bugs everywhere. Microsoft Phone wouldn’t connect, Internet Explorer lagged behind. And for a while, it was at the bottom of every tech company at the time. They were making billions, but they still felt stuck. A massive company with “legacy software” and aging hardware.
Then in 2012 came Windows 8, a redesign meant to bridge the PC and tablet experience. But for developers and users, it was confusing. The “UI” was ahead of its time. And that in itself was the problem. It was futuristic, not intuitive.
Microsoft needed a new path. A new mindset.
Rebooting the system
Introducing Satya Nadella.
When Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, Microsoft had a huge shift. The company was completely changing. The culture, the products, the services. They all were going to change tremendously and make an impact.
His first major move? Embrace the cloud. While competitors like AWS had a head start, Microsoft had the upper hand in terms of connections and developers. Azure quickly became a serious threat to the competitors in that industry. Microsoft began to embrace platforms other than Windows itself. Office 365 came to Android and iOS.
This wasn’t a flashy kind of innovation that made the headlines. It was the slow, steady kind. The kind that built trust in developers, teams, and businesses. The kind that earned a slow respect, and not a flashy one.
Running the system
Fast forward to today, Microsoft doesn’t just run its own systems, but it powers other people to have their own inventions. Using Azure and using AI. Microsoft isn’t the loudest in every room because it is already in every room.
Microsoft may not be the flashiest of them all, but it definitely is the most dependable out of all of them.