Steve Ballmer
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
We keep talking about Microsoft as the point of integration or choke point or dependency or standard for the whole ecosystem. Given that, it is quite remarkable how much value they created on top of the platform versus just captured for themselves. There's that famous sort of Bill Gates line, you want your ecosystem around you to be generating more revenue than you are taking for yourself.
They did a ton of that. It's the OEMs and it's the application developers.
They did a ton of that. It's the OEMs and it's the application developers.
It's unbelievable. You know, when Microsoft has an install base of 100 million people using Excel, in this episode, let's just say 10 million people who were using Excel. And suddenly some up and coming spreadsheet comes out with a cool feature like auto sum or like fill down or like draw borders around the cells or whatever.
It's unbelievable. You know, when Microsoft has an install base of 100 million people using Excel, in this episode, let's just say 10 million people who were using Excel. And suddenly some up and coming spreadsheet comes out with a cool feature like auto sum or like fill down or like draw borders around the cells or whatever.
Suddenly Microsoft does a tiny bit of dev work and they can reap tons and tons and tons of value for doing that that the tiny company cannot do.
Suddenly Microsoft does a tiny bit of dev work and they can reap tons and tons and tons of value for doing that that the tiny company cannot do.
So fixed amount of dev work amortized across a large customer base.
So fixed amount of dev work amortized across a large customer base.
Yes. Switching costs. Well, funny thing about monopoly is there's nothing to switch to.
Yes. Switching costs. Well, funny thing about monopoly is there's nothing to switch to.
There's not a classic network, Facebook or AT&T style network here in terms of one user can contact every other user, but more users being on Windows incentivizes more developers to make great applications for Windows, which enables Microsoft to sell more copies to more users, etc.
There's not a classic network, Facebook or AT&T style network here in terms of one user can contact every other user, but more users being on Windows incentivizes more developers to make great applications for Windows, which enables Microsoft to sell more copies to more users, etc.
Oh, you're right. I didn't even think about that. The document formats are a huge network effect thing, even before the internet, even before organizations were networked and computers were networked outside of an organization. File formats, you're right. There's huge network economies to file formats.
Oh, you're right. I didn't even think about that. The document formats are a huge network effect thing, even before the internet, even before organizations were networked and computers were networked outside of an organization. File formats, you're right. There's huge network economies to file formats.