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Comment by polyomino | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft used to be a boxed software business, now they're transitioning to saas. It's really that simple.

Right, but Amazon and Google are arguably better than them at SaaS. AWS is second to none for cloud hosting, and Google is second to none for AI.

Only if you ignore the categories of software where Microsoft leads -- Active Directory and Office 365 are SaaS offerings that Microsoft has that are seeing massive adoption, and Microsoft is using that to leverage businesses onto their other cloud offerings.

Google is second to none for AI.

Definitely going to disagree there. While Google has done more work on commercializing piss-poor AI, MS Research has been at the forefront of AI research since before Google learned how to make money. Google is definitely the second fiddle when it comes to AI research, and it's not even close.

What metric are we basing on here?

Since I'm arguing from the research standpoint, published research or citations by other research.

Really? Try Office 365 vs Google Docs and get back to me! There's no comparison. Microsoft is better.

I think Microsoft is the best SaaS provider overall. Google has some quirky offerings with GSuites that honestly arent comparable to other enterprise offerings from a quality perspective- especially if you are used to Office, Outlook and AD. And when it comes to cloud computing Google is a distant third.

Microsoft understands customer service though, and Google refuses to learn. Surely that’s relevant to SaaS.

Cloud hosting isn't SaaS. Think productivity, CRM, business apps ...

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