Bill Gates

Because whoever manages the source of truth for who are all the people and what are all the resources, you know, devices and everything that my company owns, everything else needs to reference that canonical set of proper nouns, whether it's email, whether it's calendar. So that was this incredible sticky product that then you could just keep attaching more and more stuff to. Any enterprise need?

Because whoever manages the source of truth for who are all the people and what are all the resources, you know, devices and everything that my company owns, everything else needs to reference that canonical set of proper nouns, whether it's email, whether it's calendar. So that was this incredible sticky product that then you could just keep attaching more and more stuff to. Any enterprise need?

Oh, we got you covered. And hey, it works with Active Directory.

Oh, we got you covered. And hey, it works with Active Directory.

Fascinating. I don't think I quite understood that. And so basically, you then have NT as the operating system, SQL as the database, and then you've got all these other applications that basically run on that stack.

Fascinating. I don't think I quite understood that. And so basically, you then have NT as the operating system, SQL as the database, and then you've got all these other applications that basically run on that stack.

Yeah, it's pretty incredible. That's all on the sort of why it's good for customers. On the why it's good for Microsoft, Steve also pioneered this bundling idea, which is once you sign the enterprise agreement, you get access to all of this.

Yeah, it's pretty incredible. That's all on the sort of why it's good for customers. On the why it's good for Microsoft, Steve also pioneered this bundling idea, which is once you sign the enterprise agreement, you get access to all of this.

And if you're a customer that's only using 30% of the things in the bundle, if you have business needs that involve some Microsoft product that comes for free in your bundle, you're going to adopt that. And guess what? You just became a stickier Microsoft customer. I feel like this often goes overlooked in the like, oh, Microsoft's a big, boring enterprise company right now.

And if you're a customer that's only using 30% of the things in the bundle, if you have business needs that involve some Microsoft product that comes for free in your bundle, you're going to adopt that. And guess what? You just became a stickier Microsoft customer. I feel like this often goes overlooked in the like, oh, Microsoft's a big, boring enterprise company right now.

There was a tremendous amount of business model innovation in figuring out that bundling like that with additional products can create stickiness, which eventually creates more enterprise value for your company because you've got these long, durable, compounding revenue streams. Oh, and all your customers are growing, so you have the whole land and expand thing there.

There was a tremendous amount of business model innovation in figuring out that bundling like that with additional products can create stickiness, which eventually creates more enterprise value for your company because you've got these long, durable, compounding revenue streams. Oh, and all your customers are growing, so you have the whole land and expand thing there.

And the thing underpinning it all is the software itself has zero marginal costs. So you can bundle in all this stuff for free because it actually doesn't cost you anything.

And the thing underpinning it all is the software itself has zero marginal costs. So you can bundle in all this stuff for free because it actually doesn't cost you anything.

Inclusive of Windows and Office. I mean, it's not just, you know, a salesman comes to you and sells you Windows. This is Microsoft amortizing their go-to-market costs across all of their products because when you show up at an enterprise, you've got lots of stuff to sell them.

Inclusive of Windows and Office. I mean, it's not just, you know, a salesman comes to you and sells you Windows. This is Microsoft amortizing their go-to-market costs across all of their products because when you show up at an enterprise, you've got lots of stuff to sell them.

And a key feature of the EA is that it is a three-year agreement, which means that you really need everything to be aligned to pull this off. There's something pretty convenient that you may have noticed about Windows and Office. They both tend to release an operating system or a new package of Office once every three years or so.

And a key feature of the EA is that it is a three-year agreement, which means that you really need everything to be aligned to pull this off. There's something pretty convenient that you may have noticed about Windows and Office. They both tend to release an operating system or a new package of Office once every three years or so.

And so every customer, no matter when they sign the agreement, is essentially guaranteed one upgrade during their lifetime.

And so every customer, no matter when they sign the agreement, is essentially guaranteed one upgrade during their lifetime.