Microsoft AI and the rest of its stack

Why does Microsoft aims all its arrows on AI (Artificial Intelligence) and makes this their next Big Bet? Microsoft was not always right in choosing the big bets (Nokia, Internet, just to name two), but they did not so bad. But now I want to raise a topic which Microsoft will not like and also will not agree, but we all need to be aware of. We all hate to do be dependent on one single vendor and feel like we do not have any choice. The most common ones are in this case Windows and Office. Almost everyone uses Windows on their laptop and desktop (in different versions) and the same goes for Office (in all different tastes). For the average user these products are also sufficient to do their daily job and there is no room or need for a comparable product. The only problem you can have with these products in general is the price point (or better the margin); Microsoft makes an awful lot of revenue, margin and bottom line profit on these products. Azure is now also a big part of this, but it is all connected. And Microsoft wants to create this dependency by subscriptions. Once you are in, it is almost impossible to get out.

Now let’s add AI to it in the form of CO-pilot. The Term CO is already interesting, but the average user doesn’t have any clue how many CO-pilots Microsoft already has (I lost count already). And what Microsoft tries is to connect CO-pilot to all of their solutions, so once you are in it is so hard to get out. So in essence it is a brilliant tactic which also should not be that bad, besides one thing: the pricing. Just to add CO-pilot for Office365, it goes at a cost of $30 per user per month. Roughly speaking, this means a doubling of the cost on Microsoft. And I am not so interested in the cost, beside the fact that you need to have the cash of course, but more in the revenue. Microsoft promises Golden Mountains (almost miracles), but without the clear evidence for it, we are going for the hype. And so many organizations have purchased CO-pilot already without readiness assessment, security assessment and to check what it really means.

And to be clear: I believe in the power of let’s call it computers, machine learning, AI and what’s more. And I see threats and possibilities, depending. on the situation (deep fakes and misinformation is now already huge, what if people think they do not have to think anymore?) But for this topic it is all about the connection between the standard Windows, Office and Azure stack in combination with AI. AI is not only Microsoft but it is clear what will work best together. But we need to be careful not to fall in the money trap…it is clear that Microsoft wants to secure the bottom line revenue AND profit by putting AI in everything. We cannot prevent that, but we should be more strong on the licensing and pricing policies. At least that is what I believe. And for closure: how high is the cost of AI for Microsoft, besides development, but on Datacenter costs? In the end it’s a huge collection of servers using energy in different forms. I know who pays for it…