Microsoft's Chatbot Strategy Resulted in Massive Losses, So Now It's Trying to Reinvent Itself as 'Hardware Company' (Once Again, Years After XBox, KIN, Windows Phone and Surface Failed Miserably)
THE revenues associated with Windows has fallen sharply every quarter for several quarters already. Windows is basically bleeding. GNU/Linux is among those benefiting and picking up the lost market share (not counting Android and Chromebooks; Android became a lot bigger than Windows).
What has been happening since the nonstop Microsoft layoffs began (end of 2022) is fascinating. First they hijacked "OpenAI", which wasn't meant to become a de facto subsidiary. Months passed and after thousands of paid-for puff pieces in many languages the chatbots failed. Nowadays it's easy to find lots of negative-sounding articles about chatbots. People are fed up. It's over. It's the beginning of the end for this nonsensical bubble. Good riddance.
Now Microsoft 'needs' to pretend to be an "endearing" or "becoming" "HARDWARE COMPANY". How much money was lost on XBox, Surface, Windows Phone and so on? Is Microsoft hoping we'll forget what happened to ARM and Windows "RT"? The ARM deal will soon expire and that'll become another boon for GNU/Linux, according to ARM's leadership.
"Microsoft turns to Intel, not Nvidia, to make new chip," says this shallow new piece and another one tells us that "Intel lands foundry deal for custom Microsoft processor — 18A process tech to be used for 'very exciting platform shift'".
Who will buy this and why? Nvidia already has better products. We saw similar vapourware from OpenAI's CEO, who was never able to make a dime for that company, only epic losses. To quote the article:
Intel Foundry announced Wednesday at IFS Direct that Microsoft has chosen Intel's 18A (1.8nm-class) process technology for its next-generation custom processor.
So what? There's already lots of competition there. It's a very crowded space and Microsoft would be a latecomer.
Our interpretation of all this is that Microsoft must tell shareholders that Azure did not fail (it defrauds them each time it claims otherwise) and that shareholders should pour in more money (losses, investment in a Ponzi scheme) into that. Microsoft says it needs "investment" for chatbots now (to rekindle interest in "cloud"). Microsoft insists that chatbots did not fail, even if they did. Microsoft now says that shareholders should invest in chatbots because Microsoft need them to "create demand" for "HEY HI" (AI) hardware - whatever that is (accelerators in hardware aren't novel, they're decades old, sans the buzzwords du jour).
"As mentioned before," an associate noted, "Azure as a server farm failed and using it for LLMs [chatbots] gets some marketing activity out of otherwise dead server farms."
The associate moreover commented on recent press releases from Microsoft, heralding it would "invest" in "HEY HI" in the UK, Germany and Spain, then provide "HEY HI" training in India [1, 2].
This associate called these "bribes" and said that the bribes are probably pre-emptive strikes against the possibility of regulation. "I would say that the bribes are aimed at public perception as much if not more than the minds of the officials," the associate opined.
The public will be swayed to believe that any regulation or antitrust action against Microsoft would "kill jobs".
Psydroid did a good job explaining to me last night what those "deals" are about, as he says all Microsoft offers under the banner of "investing billions" in "Hey Hi" is just "clown computing" credits, not actual money.
Those credits would help fake demand not only for chatbots but also for Azure. But if Microsoft subsidises all this, it'll mean more losses.
Azure is dying. Layoffs, losses, no real growth. Microsoft has in fact just retired Azure IoT Central. The announcement is full of lies. The reality is, lack of demand for Azure is dooming the "clown computing" strategy, so they keep hopping to "games" (Activision), "security" (back doors being monetised is an illegitimate business plan), chatbots (dumb, albeit disguised as "Hey Hi"), and now some hardware pipe dream. As if Microsoft can compete with established hardware giants whose name is reputable in that space. Microsoft is known for hardware that kills babies. █