> one could even argue they are somewhere between the embrace and extend phase.
I see it more as grasping at straws to stay relevant. The Ballmer-era FUD campaign was mostly a failure (and bad PR). "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em".
I see it more as grasping at straws to stay relevant. The Ballmer-era FUD campaign was mostly a failure (and bad PR). "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em".
Microsoft is a large company. In recent years, many *NIX developers joined them. Although I don't have statistics.
Gone are the days where its funny or righteous to bash Microsoft on /. heck gone is /.
Its also not only Microsoft; its Wintel at a whole. Desktop market lost a lot of its relative relevance. Intel is also having trouble with ARM platform [1]. That's not only desktop market. ARM's onto the server market as well.
I'm not really backing the above up with sources and numbers though so take it with a grain of salt.
[1] https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/02/intel-corp...
https://genius.com/Steve-ballmer-one-microsoft-annotated
Nadella (Pichai is google) is executing the roadmap Ballmer laid.