Tag Archives: AWS

August 1, 2025 · 04:58

The accusers

I saw a message fly past and it took me by surprise. It was CNBC (aka Capitalistically Nothing but Crap) and the accusation was ‘Microsoft and Amazon are hurting cloud competition, UK regulator finds’ (at https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/31/uk-cma-cloud-ruling-microsoft-amazon.html) with “The regulator is concerned that certain cloud market practices are creating a “lock-in” effect where businesses are trapped into unfavorable contractual agreements.” So, that’s a thing now? The operative word is concerned. So, is this the way former Amazon UK boss, Doug Gurr, on an interim basis is showing the world that he released the chain and necktie from Amazon?

There is ‘some’ clustering and as the setting is advocated by some the score at present is “AWS holds approximately 29-31% market share, while Microsoft Azure has around 22-24%, and Google Cloud holds about 11.5-12%” The only surprising thing here is that Google is remarkably behind Microsoft by a little over 10%. Nothing to be worried about, but still the numbers set this out. The infuriating setting by the the CMA giving us “The CMA recommended a further investigation into Microsoft and Amazon under a strict new U.K. competition law to determine whether they have “strategic market status.” I am not ‘attacking’ the CMA, but as the old credence goes “Innovators create corporations, losers create hindrance for others” I suggest you take that as it goes. 

Yet there is more behind this all. Forbes gave us last week ‘Microsoft Can’t Keep EU Data Safe From US Authorities’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2025/07/22/microsoft-cant-keep-eu-data-safe-from-us-authorities/) where we see “Microsoft has admitted that it can’t protect EU data from U.S. snooping. In sworn testimony before a French Senate inquiry into the role of public procurement in promoting digital sovereignty, Anton Carniaux, Microsoft France’s director of public and legal affairs, was asked whether he could guarantee that French citizen data would never be transmitted to U.S. authorities without explicit French authorization. And, he replied, “No, I cannot guarantee it.”” And this is how Microsoft faces a near death sentence by the American administration. So much so that Microsoft seemingly is creating a data centre solely for the EU. Julia Rone gave us last year (late 2024) “It has been well acknowledged that the European Union is falling behind the US and China when it comes to cloud computing because of its lack of technological capabilities. In a recently published article, however, I argue that there is another important and often overlooked reason for EU’s laggard status: the persistent disagreement between different EU member states, which have very different visions of EU cloud policy.” I take that at face value, as I am considering (through mere speculation) that these member states are connected to American stake holders in media trying to hinder the process, but that is another matter.

So as we see ““Microsoft has openly admitted what many have long known: under laws like the Cloud Act, US authorities can compel access to data held by American cloud providers, regardless of where that data physically resides. UK or EU servers make no difference when jurisdiction lies elsewhere, and local subsidiaries or ‘trusted’ partnerships don’t change that reality,” commented Mark Boost, CEO of cloud provider Civo.” It makes me wonder how America is different from the accusations that America threw in the face of Huawei. It is like the pot calling the kettle black. And this also gives wonder where the accusation against Amazon and Microsoft ends, because the cloud field is seemingly loaded with political players. They all see that data is the ultimate currency and America (as it is near broke) needs a lot of it to pay for the lifestyle they can no longer afford. In Europe the one that stands out (at least to me) is a firm I looked at in 2023 and it is growing rapidly. It is Swedish and not connected to any of the three and could become the largest in Europe. Its long-term vision involves operating eight hyper-scale data centers and three software development hubs across Europe by 2028, employing over 3,000 people. By 2030, the company aims to operate 10 hyper-scale data centers and employ over 10,000 people. There is too much focus on 2030, as I see it the American economy collapses on itself no later than 2028 and as I speculatively see it, it will drag Japan down with itself. That setting required a larger acceleration in both Europe and Asia as America will not play nice as per late 2026. At that point too many people will see where showboat America is heading too and the reefs in that area will be phenomenal. So, as I see it, the entire political swarm behind data centers and fictive AI will require a whole new range of management and I reckon that players like Amazon and Microsoft have never been dealt these cards before, so I shudder to think what will happen when it faces accusations from the EU, the CMA and others. This aligns with the accusation (from one source) giving us “An antitrust complaint filed by Google to the European Commission in September 2024, alleging that Microsoft’s licensing terms unfairly favor its own Azure cloud platform, making it difficult and expensive to use Microsoft software like Windows Server and Office on competing clouds.” I wonder, didn’t Microsoft played a similar game with gaming?

So whilst the infighting is going on on a continued setting, I wonder where Oracle will end up being? As I see it this is rather nice, but I am accusing myself at this point that we aren’t face with a tidal wave, but merely with 5 cups of tea all stating there is a storm happening and whilst the teacups are talking to each other and showing how bad the storm is, the reality is that it is not smooth sailing, but seemingly as close to it as possible. For that you need to see where Evroc is standing, where it is going and how fast it is achieving this. The second market is Oracle, how it is progressing and who it is partnered with (pretty much everyone) and these two elements show us that there are governmental captains stating that their pond is in a dreadful state (whilst presenting their cup of tea as a much larger pool then it is) the corporate captain stating there is a storm brewing, but absent of evidence and the media is flaming every storm it can so that they can get their digital dollars. But consider that Oracle is presenting good weathers and there are alternatives whilst the media actively avoid illuminating Evroc, with only TechCrunch giving us in March “Amid calls for sovereign EU tech stack, Evroc raises $55M to build a hyper-scale cloud in Europe” there were a few more and they are all technical places. The western media is largely absent as there are no digital dollars to be made here.

So consider what you see and try to see the larger picture, because there is a lot more, but some players don’t want you to see the whole image, it distorts their profit prediction. So did you see the little hidden snag? Where is Huawei cloud? Whilst this is going on ‘Huawei hosts conference on cloud technology in Egypt’ where we see that “the event drew more than 600 government officials, business leaders, and ecosystem partners from over 10 countries and regions”, as I see it, this is a classic approach to the “While two dogs are fighting for a bone, a third runs away with it” expression. So consider that part too please.

Have a great day.

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June 16, 2025 · 17:52

A Shakespeare saying

That is on the table and it started 3 days when I wrote ‘The changing of games’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/06/13/the-changing-of-games/) Here I showed the setting that Microsoft opened itself to and Denmark is not the only one. There is a larger setting that America is no longer the go-to guy for European business. It is not a setting President Trump was looking for, but then he never anticipated that Microsoft would back a solution (builder.ai) with at the core a stated 700 engineers. Trust me, it matters (trusting me is always up in the air). You see, Europe and other places are now suddenly reminded how Microsoft got to the top and innovation is not the first ‘setting’ that comes to mind. Netscape and the Wordperfect corporation comes to mind in the first instance. You see, I never got to the top of anything. In part because I never heralded the limelight, in part because the people who got there feared me. I don’t back down (ever) from the setting of supporting solutions for good instead of what was politically convenient. And I am not alone., thousands of tech support and customer care people are n my side and they can now dish up the past and hit certain players where it hurts. 

So now we get to TechRadar and its slightly taste adjusted setting. The story (at https://www.techradar.com/pro/denmark-wants-to-replace-windows-and-office-with-linux-and-libreoffice-as-it-seeks-to-embrace-digital-sovereignty) gives us ‘Denmark wants to replace Windows and Office with Linux and LibreOffice as it seeks to embrace digital sovereignty’ a mere 18 hours ago. It has the byline “Denmark bets big on open source revolution and control”. You see, I don’t think it is a big bet. Since the end of the 90’s when times and budgets were good, the IT setting (not merely Microsoft) was to instigate an IT armistice race and those times are gone. So whist certain players went to the ‘safety’ on IT armistice, the governments merely accepted the setting that this is how it was supposed to be, never realising they had other chances. And as I personally see it Microsoft turned that tap off towards others and redirected it to themselves. This is basically how multi-trillion companies are made. Yet the underlying setting is that there was always a larger field and Microsoft was not it. Or better stated Microsoft was not alone here, they merely tempered the setting for themselves, as this setting was never anticipated. A President that shallowed expenses and a larger premise to self. So whilst Denmark was being treated that America wants Greenland as allegedly houses a wealth of minerals, Denmark decided to look what could be done and so they did and in the process woke up Dutch politicians as well. So here we are seeing “Denmark is embarking on an ambitious effort to reduce its reliance on proprietary software from foreign tech giants by transitioning its government systems away from Microsoft offerings Windows and Office 365. The Danish Ministry of Digitalization reportedly plans a phased migration to Linux operating systems and LibreOffice for office productivity.” And as I personally see it, TechRadar is adding the ‘ambitious part’ for non-sentimental reasons. This setting was thwarted by Microsoft in the late 90’s and now they are less likely to succeed as the political field has changed. As I remember open Office is still a direction that is open. As Microsoft closes sluices they couldn’t close them all and now these sluices are the key to lose dependency to Microsoft. And here we see “The core objective, according to Minister Caroline Stage, is strategic: to safeguard Denmark’s digital infrastructure from the uncertainties of geopolitical tensions and the risk of disrupted access to US-based services.” Which is massively bad news for Microsoft because this is the one instance where they never had to protect their home guard before and here those tech support and customer care people will side with Denmark. The people Microsoft cut loose and away as it they didn’t see eye to eye to the larger need of Microsoft, those people will laugh out loud to the lacking needs of Microsoft minded people. In retrospect I saw this coming, but not in this form and not to the degree it will be hitting US-shored businesses. As such we get a few more settings, they all sound bad for Microsoft and it will enhance the needs of IBM and Oracle as they seek European sides to their business. And as we read in, we see the third player to this event. It is shown with “Denmark’s initiative is not without precedent. More than a decade ago, Germany, most notably the city of Munich, attempted to replace Microsoft products with Linux and LibreOffice.” And in that same setting, I remember that a France location had a similar idea, which is likely to have connections to Monaco and Luxembourg. As such Europe goes from 1 to 5 players and the impact on America will not be without consequences. And where TechRadar gives us, without sources “The Danish government, however, appears to be proceeding with greater caution. The rollout will be gradual, and the ministry has stated that it will temporarily revert to Microsoft tools if serious disruptions arise.” This part actually reads like a ‘divert or lose’ situation and Microsoft needs to take heed as this comes with a larger setting. You see, there is an upside for the Netherlands and out reflects back to the Wordperfect Corporation. America made Wordperfect a solution from Utah and it reflected that it was to be put down, but the Dutch had reasons for this solution. It was the first serious solution that perfectly converted syntax’s into Dutch and they had reasons to be proud as the ‘older’ reason is set to the proverbial English setting of 40,000 words and 800 exceptions to the Dutch setting of 800 words and 40,000 exceptions. You see, that was the larger conundrum and that small company in Utah figured the solutions out and that is the larger setting. Getting from Dutch to German, French and English is a breeze (as the depression goes) and after all these years. Did Microsoft protect that IP by paying for these fees year after year? I doubt it, Microsoft is at best a greedy user and it had cut off these fees after at least a decade setting them short by a decade at the very least and that is where these techies come in. They still have the bad feelings of getting cut short with the little retirement fees they were handed and they will massively support any anti-Microsoft feelings they see. So, when your birds come home to roost, they really will have a party.

I feel that TechRadar was ‘spicing’ it up with “Compatibility with Microsoft Office documents and user adaptation to a new interface may pose significant challenges.” I doubt it will be very hard. Open Office had things brewing in 2012 when they were the number one challenge and these files have not been upgraded much. The larger setting is in newer files that has solutions in place that old ones didn’t, but as far as I can tell aside from Excel files, most files can be ‘altered’ to another solution. Consider that Google Docs, Apple Pages and a few others have little to no problems to read word files. Google Sheets and Apple Numbers can for the most read Excel files and I will give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt that Excel is way advanced to those two solutions, but with the gathered intel from them and OpenOffice there are little snags to be expected. When you see that and the joke that PowerPoint has basically become that most of this setting is close to academic. There is a chance that SAP will have to ‘shed’ its neutrality by claiming it is important for its SAP Dashboard to stay with Excel as it is ‘important’ (I merely think that XCelcius was the go to solution with Excel ad that is basically what SAP Dashboard is) and they will shed that when they see the damage they will do to themselves. As I personally see it Google Sheets could step in there. So as Microsoft will be losing 50% of their solutions, the larger demise will start. 

Whilst Wiki is not really a dependable source as it has no real academic value, it does serve its purpose and (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPerfect) we get to see “In November 2004, Novell filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft for alleged anti-competitive behavior (such as tying Word to sales of Windows and withdrawal of support for APIs) that Novell claims led to loss of WordPerfect market share.That lawsuit, after several delays, was dismissed in July 2012. Novell filed an appeal from the judgment in November 2012, but the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. Novell sought review in the US Supreme Court, but in 2014 that court declined to hear the case, ending the legal action almost a decade after it had begun.” It isn’t what it states, it shows that the Novell vs Microsoft antitrust lawsuit gives Denmark the blanket it needs. I remember the massive setting the WP6 for Windows had and Microsoft used that to push its own solution (Word) and when we see this, we see that Microsoft has a government wheelbarrow (if that expression is still used) and as such Denmark has another handle to shed Microsoft (as have the other four). As I see it, in a decade the laws were meant to protect America solutions, and now we get the Canadian setting of Alludo. A Canadian firm no less and as Wordperfect is still under in France, another side opens up. And it doesn’t look good for Microsoft as the niches they created unite as one bubble against Microsoft and America. There is every chance that we will get to see new innovation but no longer in the hands of Microsoft and whilst this happens Microsoft loses market share after market share.

And as Windows support ends, the people considering shift will merely increase. As such after this I wonder if there is any case left for Azure. It makes you feel blue (and not in a good way) leaving larger gaps for players like Oracle and AWS to step in. Yes they are American, but they at least have had the good of any corporation in view of the needs of their solutions and that is where Denmark might make choices as long as these two have European clouds in mind. As fast as as I see it, they do and as Europe shift, the Arabian peninsula does to.

As this happens in my lifetime gives me a tear of joy. They say pride cometh before the fall and as I see it Microsoft will have a long way to fall down (the boom of impact might be the first boom that is globally felt and heard) as such there is a lot to be seen and soon as Satya Nadella gives ‘us’ the need for ‘friendly cooperation’ will be the first setting that is laughed away by some, but when the company is seen as ‘in danger’ it will be the first massive hit to any American operation and that will set a larger scene (what that scene is, I have no idea. As I see it, this has never happened before) and as Microsoft goes, Apple will shortly follow. It quite literally will be left without option.

So have a great day and if you are in Abu Dhabi, enjoy the Chicken Shawarma as it is lunch time there now. Have a fun day

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June 13, 2025 · 03:51

The changing of games

There is the thought that games are changing and the first question becomes ‘What games?’ And that would be a correct way of thinking. Whether you decide to kill the bullies and their connections, whether you stand up for yourself or if you become a lot less visible. The latter part is my preferred way, what doesn’t see you, will not hurt you. But in the 80’s I learned the hard way that always on the defense tends to be pointless, as such I would be inclined to scurry over to the kill side. It has the benefit that the the magicians of this world get plenty scared when the bunny bites them. They aren’t used to the sight of their own blood. They tend to cry and wonder why they can’t be bullies anymore. You see, at some point people have had enough. Some like me tend to weigh the consequences of being bullied or to eradicate them and live the fallout. At some point accepting the fact to be bullied no longer weighs high enough and when the Sydney Metropolitan police departments tend to do nothing, even as they have Brodies Law at hand, they prefer not to act. It only works so far. 

This story is important to the real deal, it is a story that ZDNet gives us (at https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-denmark-is-dumping-microsoft-office-and-windows-for-libreoffice-and-linux/) where we see that Denmark is now apparently ‘Why Denmark is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and Linux’ and in that setting I wonder if Danish voices might also float towards WPS Office (by Kingsoft), you see, ZDNet gives us “Denmark wants to claim “digital sovereignty.” In the States, you probably haven’t heard that phrase, but in the European Union, digital sovereignty is a big deal and getting bigger.” I see that this is one avenue I never considered. Oh, I’ve heard the term. Yet the larger setting is not what I have heard, but what is behind it. Denmark is likely furious by some bully that wants of annex Greenland (an island West of Denmark a mere 2.166 million km²) and they are decently angry and this was the first setting. After being fed up with the Trump stage, they decided to take Microsoft out of the equation. At that point a lot of settings that ‘drip’ into American data settings and in this the first stone is cast. You see, President Trump might seem to think that business will adjust towards American standards, but that is a little delusional. You see, Microsoft is seen as a 3.56 trillion company, but behind that is a towering amount of debts as well. The totality of debts is according to some A$93.09 Billion. This might not seem as much, but what ‘victories’ have Microsoft made? What spin actually represents revenue? Microsoft is all about revenue and net profit, yet the larger setting becomes “In Q3 2025, Xbox gaming revenue decreased by 7% year-on-year, but content and service sales increased by 8%.” So Microsoft sets a plus to diminish the minus, yet the larger station is that they lose a lot more than they gain, for what is the depending value of the 8% rise? It is not the same as based amount of the 7% drop. Microsoft is losing against Sony 3:1 and now that the Nintendo Switch 2 is out, these losses will merely increase overall. Whatever Microsoft has as a tablet doesn’t even dent the setting Apple has and as some see, their Azure state seemingly doesn’t hold a candle to the system some book dealer has (yes, it is AWS). Then we get the setting that their ‘edge’ yes, their browser only has a 5% market share against Google having 67%, Apple follows with 17%. Now how many failures can such a company hold? And now consider Huawei entering the field with HarmonyOS. Taking market share from both Android and iOS. That was the setting before today and now Denmark is seemingly the first to drop Microsoft for other paths in IT. So how long until Denmark convinces one of the other EU nations to follow suit? What losses will Microsoft endure before they sink some of their badly conceived projects? I don’t know, I am merely asking. 

As such Microsoft is speeding to get a lot of the HarmonyOS population, but as Kingsoft grows Microsoft diminishes and the that population never had much love for Microsoft and America to begin with. And we see part of this with “EU leaders are seeking to reduce Europe’s dependence on foreign technology providers, primarily those from the United States, and to assert greater control over its digital infrastructure, data, and technological future.” And another part is that they’re concerned about who controls European data, who sets the rules, and who can potentially cut off access to essential services in times of geopolitical tension. And the tariff war doesn’t help. That setting instigated by President Trump is likely to ht Microsoft faster than they realise and what happens when these debts will rise as revenue decreases.

The next part is alleged settings and I have seen no evidence of this from other sources “President Donald Trump issued ICC sanctions. This order allegedly prompted Microsoft to lock the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, out of his email accounts, according to reports. This came after Microsoft chairman and general counsel, Brad Smith, had promised that the company would stand behind its EU customers against political pressure. Recently, however, Smith stated that Microsoft had not been “in any way [involved in] the cessation of services to the ICC,” according to Politico. When pressed, Microsoft failed to further explain how the email disconnection occurred.” That might (or not) be a complete answer. I have to add that the entire builder.ai fiasco is on the hands of Microsoft. They backed this and they never saw the 700 engineers programming what on existent AI was supposed to do. So where are these 700 systems, their OS and their Azure licenses? Wouldn’t that be firmly on the eyes of Satya Nadella? And as such, how was this worth a billion dollars? If Microsoft was entirely unaware they could be seen as incompetent (or at lease some people on the VP and higher list). If they did know there is a larger failing at Microsoft going on and as Denmark is allegedly dropping Microsoft, it is the start of a lot more bad news. But they can rely on spin to keep the eyes of others somewhere else.

And we see that (allegedly) see that in part with “Whether or not Microsoft cut services to an organization in response to Trump’s order, the fear that it could do so in the future remains. Before the Danish government announced its move, Denmark’s largest cities, Copenhagen and Aarhus, had already announced plans to phase out Microsoft software and cloud services.” So why allegedly? The setting is fear, not data and whilst we see the results we might see the wrong facts leading to this. As I personally see it “plans to phase out Microsoft software and cloud services” might be du to the fact that AWS is as I see it vastly superior (vastly might be overstating it) and fear could weasel in at any point, almost anywhere. Yet the likely accusation that Microsoft is the ‘bitch’ of President Trump or any American administration will be much harder to counter. It could set the tides against Microsoft in Denmark (for starters), Canada and McDonald islands (both users). So there is space to maneuver, yet Microsoft doesn’t do that and we are left with the accusation. And the larger setting that “In particular, the Danes are worried about Trump’s policies and that US political decisions could put public IT services at risk.” Is a decent fear to have in these days, as such Microsoft will be left holding the political bag. And Denmark is not alone here “Bart Groothuis, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, recently said, the EU “should go for a European cloud” since “Europe has a ‘problem’ with American cloud.”” I am not sure how this ‘computes’ in a downside for Microsoft, but the spin masters will have their hands full because that increases the Danish setting by 100% and there is no way telling what else is at risk and who else is to follow suit.

I saw a different variation of the ‘downfall’ of Microsoft, for the most their lack of actual innovation, their dependency on marketing spin (or whatever Microsoft calls it) and their failure to deliver in several fields. And their enemies are at the gates. After Microsoft failed the mobile markets (it is near zero) and as Huawei is gaining massive levels and Microsoft is losing market share after market share and Denmark clearly showed that they see Microsoft not as a partner but as a threat. As such I have to wonder, in what field will Microsoft fail next?

Have a great day.

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June 5, 2025 · 17:07

The snag we don’t see

That happens, we don’t always see the settings that open up to us. It is one of the stages of what some call the ‘Aha!’ erlebnis. It is actual intelligence and that is why artificial intelligence will fall short for a long time. Yesterday I had some time to relax and I used it to watch the final two episodes of the October Faction (Netflix). Apart from being totally awesome, I also found the dastardly news that it is a one season only setting. Too bad as it was really awesome. Yet, I digress. During one of these episodes I suddenly had a little brain strain and a few things came into full view. It brought me back to a story I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/01/15/it-was-this-simple/) called ‘It was this simple’ where I had the idea for a new game that was also (in part) educational. Yet last night I had an idea that I was going about it the wrong way. You see, the start isn’t one of the three gods (Hades, Poseidon or Zeus), it is a destination. The idea is to invert that stage and start with pone of the ‘smaller’ gods like Hecate. You see, as I see it Hecate gets its setting from the mortals and animals. So do the other ‘smaller’ gods. As do Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Hestia, Dionysus. And as we unlock their abilities, we will then get access to one of the three. Or I might am considering that Zeus is only unlocked when all others are unlocked. 

As I see it some gods connect to merely one of the three, some to two gods and some to all three. As I see it this game would need to be replayed three times to unlock it all, but in this game the second game already gives you the areas you unlocked in the first game and the second is not the same, merely a continuation of the first (makes for a challenging lore). And beyond that as I see it, the game will incorporate several gaming styles giving you a larger game and a more fulfilling gaming time. But I wanted more than a hack, slash and pretty picture.

You see, it is merely a setting to a game, but there we also see that we unlock educational parts. What is more enticing than gaining knowledge of classical works whilst gaming? Not the ‘essence’ of a classical work but the full text of people like Hesiod, Homer, Sappho, Alcaeus, Pindar and many many more. I still think that the Amazon Luna, with a link to the Kindle, or even now the Tencent console with a link to the the MatePad Pro or MatePad Air might be an alternative. A setting to see a more inclusive form of gaming and as such un-enabling those with the ‘turbo’ style of gaming trying to getting people in line to more advertising. Short term enabling and set gaming back on the track of a more enabling setting of gaming like Bethesda enabled for almost 2 decades. 

We are all do taken back by the turbo setting of games (especially the young) whilst the more complete setting of gaming is largely ignored and as I see it, there is more to gaming. You see we cannot (in good mind) waste the entire day gaming. I get that, but we can rotate that interest to give people a larger backstory. You see, according to classicist William Hansen: “the Greeks and Romans had all the genres of oral narrative known to us, even ghost stories and urban legends, but they also told all kinds that in most of the Western world no longer circulate orally, such as myths and fairytales.” I want to resettle that lost art. Some gamers have tried to do so in the lore they give us, but they fell short as they didn’t consider the larger stage. It was not their fault, until recently and the promise of the IoT (Internet of things) and the larger stage of Bluetooth we never considered where we could go and that is merely another setting the Microsoft failed to see (they are racking up a setting of missed opportunity) and Google cannot be given this failure as they basically dropped the Google Stadia, which was their right to do so and as I see it, Amazon and Tencent now have a larger stage to become the new heralded kings in gaming. It is not a smooth or even an easy ride, but as I see it they both missed out on gaining at least 50 million gamers. 

So could I be wrong?
Yes, of course that is possible, but what the ‘advertisement’ courtesans fail to see is that the people have had enough of advertisements and that is something they are in denial of as the money is too good. But as I see it, the one who does see it will get a larger setting of gaining the field advantage to this and that is basically Nintendo and Sony. It is the third place that becomes interesting when we see in January ‘Microsoft’s AI revenues up 175%, while Xbox’s results remain disappointing’ (before the builder.ai exposure) and ‘Microsoft’s Xbox Handheld Plans Reportedly Shelved; Company to Optimise Windows 11 Gaming Performance’ (last week) and I reckon that the spin will continue as Microsoft is scrambling to bury bad news as Nintendo is making larger strides into gaming. As such there is space for either Amazon or Tencent to gain the number three spot. This is not a given but massively likely, especially as other news sees my other solution grace the limelight in sight of some Hajj numbers I see roll be and an optional solution that roughly 900,000,000 million users are up for grabs (yet another space Microsoft missed). So as some will see “Asus’ Xbox branded handheld, codenamed Project Kennan, is reportedly on track to launch later this year”, I merely wonder when that changes from later this year to next year and after that it being silently cancelled (my personal speculation). You see Asus also sees the market and the knee-jerk actions from an tariff driven administration won’t last long, especially when Huawei is showing its MateBook Fold and that is making the filtered news. I personally don’t know how good it is, but the larger setting is that the world is watching and now that it is less than 1.2Kg and uses Harmony OS. The first and it is a banger. So when that system as well as Tencent takes the world by storm (which it is very likely to do) we see yet another loss for Microsoft and not merely that, Apple, Sony, Google, Samsung and even Nintendo will see its impact (Sony and Nintendo less so). This was the setting I expected to come about 6 years ago and it is here a little faster then expected. 

This is all important because the advertisers will start losing out and that will stop gamers in their track as their games are less fulfilling. You see ad break gaming is nice in a turbo setting, but when the gamer considers where they ended up being they will want (read: demand) a more compelling form of gaming. This is good for people like Bethesda, Ubisoft, Guerrilla Games (and several others), but (for example in the UK) the 1,801 independent and publisher-owned studios. These studios employ around 75,000 people. The number of studios has grown significantly, with 251 new studios founded between December 2021 and April 2023 it is not good news, because what we don’t see is that these developers are relying on advertisement to make some of their money and when that falls away, these developers will fish behind the net of revenue.

And as I see it, Ubisoft has options in these glasses devices and they could also launch on Sony and Nintendo, but others will have to streamline whatever they thought was an option and others will merely collapse. As I see it, we haven’t see the power of Harmony OS yet but it will come and as America shuns away from that (for the most obvious stupid reasons) Europe and others are very willing to give their economy a boost from what HarmonyOS brings and now that the hardware is out some people will finally get the thought “How can this benefit us?” And that will be the start of a lot more and as I see it, Amazon has the inside track to grow more business (outside of the US) and there lies the setting for them. As some might ‘speculate’ that Amazon would not be profitable without its cloud business. We also see that the shape of the cloud is about to change and that is where the larger money is, because cloud gaming is only gaming in name. It can be a lot more and as I see it, the solutions I gave will become massively and not merely this game (I put it online for a reason) it could start a much larger wave and that is where I see my surf time (perhaps literally so). I reckon that the ‘older’ quote “HarmonyOS, Huawei’s operating system, is designed to work with a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, and PCs. While it’s not directly tied to Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the same way as Android or iOS, you can still use it to access AWS services and resources.” I reckon that Amazon sees that this lack is about to end, because they have a clear goal to increase their visibility and whilst others are taken back, Amazon is seemingly embracing the options it opens up to. As I see it, people will prefer that setting then feeling blue (read: Azure). Yet another field where Microsoft is falling short of soon enough. Their failures do seemingly seem to stack up, don’t they?

We can see the snags we think we fail to see, we can ignore them or we can find away to make it work for us. So have a great day and consider where you could be in 2026 or 2027, because thinking you get there in 2025 is nice, but largely set to economic turmoils of the days we expect them to be according to some media. Consider where some people will END the stage of their products and see where HarmonyOS is merely beginning at present. It makes for an interesting read. Consider that WPS Office (by Kingsoft) its here for HarmonyOS and also on Amazon Fire tablets. Merely two places and as I see it, as this is free software there is a larger stage where Microsoft will end up surrendering market share. So as I said, have a great day. 

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May 24, 2025 · 00:09

A swing and a miss

It is no secret that I hold the ‘possessors’ of AI at a distance. AI doesn’t exist (not yet at least) and now I got ‘informed’ through Twitter (still refusing to call it X) the following:

So after ‘Microsoft-backed Builder.ai collapsed after finding potentially bogus sales’ we get that the company is entering insolvency proceedings. Yet a mere three days ago TechCrunch gave us “Once worth over $1B, Microsoft-backed Builder.ai is running out of money”, so as such with a giggle on my mind I give you “Can’t have been a very good AI, can it?” So from +$1,000,000,000 to zilch (aka insolvency), how long did that take and where did the money go? So consider this, TechCrunch also gives us “The Microsoft-backed unicorn, which has raised more than $450 million in funding, rose to prominence for its AI-based platform that aimed to simplify the process of building apps and websites. According to the spokesperson, Builder.ai, also known as Engineer.ai Corporation, is appointing an administrator to “manage the company’s affairs.”” Now, I am going on a limb here. Consider that a billion will enable 1,000 programmers to work a year for a million dollars each. So where did the money go? I know that this doesn’t make sense (the 1000 programmers) but to consider that they might accept a deal for $200,000 each, there would be 5 years of designing and programming. Does that make sense? The website Builder.AI (my assumption that this is where they went gives us merely one line “For customer enquiries, please contact customers@builder.ai. For capacity partner enquiries, please contact capacitynetwork@builder.ai.” This is not good as I see it. The Register (at https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/21/builderai_insolvency/) gives us “The collapse of Builder.ai has cast fresh light on AI coding practices, despite the software company blaming its fall from grace on poor historical decision-making. Backed by Microsoft, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and a host of venture capitalists, Britain-based Builder.ai rose rapidly to near-unicorn status as the startup’s valuation approached $1 billion (£740 million). The London company’s business model was to leverage AI tools to allow customers to design and create applications, although the Builder.ai team actually built the apps.”

As such the headline of the Register is pretty much spot on “Builder.ai coded itself into a corner – now it’s bankrupt” You see coding yourself into a corner is not AI, it is people. People code and when you code yourself into a corner the gig is quite literally up. And I can go on all day as there is not AI. There is deeper Machine Language and there are LLM (Large Language Model) and the combination can be awesome and it is part of an actual AI, but it is not AI. As such as Microsoft is believing its own spin (yet again) we can confuse that there is now a setting that Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and a host of venture capitalists have pretty much lost their faith in Microsoft and that will have repercussions. It is basically that simple. The first part of resolving this is to acknowledge that there is no AI, there is a clear setting that the power of DML and LLM should not be dismissed as it is really powerful but it is not AI. 

As I personally see it, the LLM is setting a stage that the chess computers had in the late 80’s and early 90’s. They basically had every chess game ever played in their memory and that is how the chess computer could foresee what was possible thrown against it. And until 2002 when Chessmaster 9000 was released by Ubisoft, that was what it was and for that time it was awesome. I would never have been able to get as far as I did in chess without that program and I am speculatively seeing that unfold. A setting holding a billion parameters? So I ,might be wrong on this part, but that is what I see and we need to realise that the entire AI setting is spin from greedy salespeople that cannot explain what they are selling (thank god I am not a salesperson). I am technical support and I am customer care and what we see as ‘the hand of a clever person’ is not that, not even close. 

So as we are also given “Blue-chip investors poured in cash to the tune of more than $500 million. However, all was not well at the startup. The company was previously known as Engineer.ai, and attracted criticism after The Wall Street Journal revealed in 2019 that the startup used human engineers rather than AI for most of its coding work”, as such (again speculation) a simple trick to replay a mere 1800 days later. And this is what a lot are (plenty of them in a more clever way) but the show is now on Microsoft. They cracked this, so when they come with a “we were lured” or “it is more complex and the concept was looking really good” we should ask them a few hard questions. So whilst we are given “While the failure of startups, even one as high profile as Builder.ai, is not uncommon, the company’s reliance on AI tools to speed coding might give some users pause for thought.” And when we consider “might give some users pause for thought” is a rather nasty setting as I was there already years ago. So where the others? As such we should grill Satya Nadella on “Last month, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella boasted that 30 percent of the code in some of the tech giant’s repositories was written by AI. As such, an observer cannot help but suspect some passive aggression is occurring here, where a developer has been told that the agent must be used, and so they are going to jolly well do it. After all, Nadella is not one to shy from layoffs.” As such I wonder when the stake holders for Microsoft will consider that the ‘USE BY’ date of Satya Nadella was only good until December 2024. But that is me merely speculating. So I wonder when the media and actual clever people in media are considering that this is a game thatch only be postponed and not won. So will the others run when the going gets tough, or will they hide behind “but everyone agrees on this” as such the individual bond will triumph and there is a lot of work out there. The need to explain to people (read: customers) is that there is a lot of good to be found in the DML and LLM combination. It remains a niche market and it will fill the markets when people cannot afford AI, because that setting will be expensive (when it is ready). These computers will be the things that IBM can afford, as can the larger players like an airline, Ford, LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) and a few others. But the first 10 years it will remain out of the hands of some, unless they time share (pay per processor second) with anyone who has the option to afford one. That computer will need to work 80%+ of the time to be affordable. 

As such we will see a total amount of spin in the coming months, because Microsoft backed the wrong end of that equation and now the fires are coming to their feet. Less then. Less than an hour ago we were given ‘Microsoft Unveils AI Features for Windows 11 Tools’. I have no idea how they can fit this in, but I reckon that the media will avoid asking the questions that matter. As such we will have to wait the unfolding of the people behind builder.ai. I wonder if anyone will ask the specification off what happened to said billion dollars? Can we get a clear list please and where did the hardware end? Or was a mere server rack leased from Microsoft? This is just me having fun at present. 

So have a great day and I will sleep like a baby knowing that Microsoft swung and missed the ball by a fair bit. I reckon that this is…. Let’s see there was the Tablet, which they lost against Apple and now Huawei as well. There was the Gaming station, which was totally inferior against Sony. there was Azure (OK, it didn’t fail but a book vendor called Amazon has a much better product, there was the Browser, which is nowhere near as good as Google. And there are a few others, but they slipped my mind. So this is at least number 5, 6 if you count Huawei as a player as well. Not really that good for a company that is valued at 3.34 trillion. So how many failures will we witness until that is gone too? 

Have fun out there today.

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January 20, 2025 · 03:54

And there was more

You see three days ago (merely two days and change) I wrote ‘A story in two parts’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/01/17/a-story-in-two-parts/) where I laird bare a few of the ‘shortcomings’ of Microsoft. However there was more. I had initially chosen the title ‘The color is blue’ yet I decided that the premise is not about Azure, there is more to it all. You see Fierce Network gives us ‘Google Cloud could overtake Microsoft’s No. 2 cloud position this year’, which sounds nice. However there are a few issues with that. We will all love ““Google Cloud is already nearly equal to Microsoft Azure in revenues, and has a higher revenue growth rate than Microsoft Azure,” Gold wrote in a research note. “By the end of the next four years of revenue growth, we project Google Cloud’s revenues will be 55% greater than Azure at current growth rates.”” The research note gives the proper “Based on the Average of Past Two Years Revenue Growth Rate

Assuming Same Growth Rate Going Forward” so that is good, but it does not despair from “By the end of the next 4 years of revenue growth, we project Google Cloud’s revenues will be 55% greater than Azure at current growth rates.” Yet this setting does not account that someone at Microsoft ‘suddenly’ takes an innovative step towards (who knows), the second setting is that the technology premise stays where it is. Huawei with their HarmonyOS is another factor, the Chinese factor. In this I predict that they might use Microsoft down the line and might step away from Google (speculative). We have little insight in what places like the UAE does and they have a large investment in their approach to AI and in this Microsoft has the inner track there. So I love the premise, but I have thoughts of consideration on how the future unfolds. There is a chance that AWS will clear house, but there are reservations on that front too. 

Still, Azure has issues. You see the Register (at https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/13/azure_m365_outage/) gives us ‘Azure, Microsoft 365 MFA outage locks out users across regions’ with the added “Microsoft’s multi-factor authentication (MFA) for Azure and Microsoft 365 (M365) was offline for four hours during Monday’s busy start for European subscribers.” I understand that it comes with “It’s fixed, mostly, after Europeans had a manic Monday” now I wonder why we see the use of ‘mostly’ there are perhaps a few gaps in the solution and that happens, but how many of these events will Microsoft cater to until a user like Coca Cola gets a tap on the shoulder to start looking for alternatives? Do you think that a man like James Quincey keeps his sense of humor when his bottom line is under fire? And that is only the beginning.

Still Microsoft has its own ‘defense’ knee jerk operation, we are informed of that by Techi where we see (at https://www.techi.com/microsoft-files-suit-against-hundreds-abuse-azure-openai-services/) with the headline ‘Microsoft Files Suit Against Hundreds for Abuse of Azure OpenAI Services’, so not only is their OpenAI ‘flawed’, it is open to abuse (apparently). We are given “API Key Theft and Hacking-as-a-Service”where we see “As per Microsoft, the defendants systematically and through their deceitful acts stole API keys, the fundamental means of authentication to its AI services. The hacked accounts were allegedly pivotal in creating an act of “hacking-as-a-service” One main ingredient for that operation would be De3u, a software that enabled one to convert images synthesized by OpenAI’s DALL-E without the necessity of writing an actual code.” I kinda covered that on September 8th 2024 in ‘Poised to give critique’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/09/08/poised-to-deliver-critique/). Michael Bargury gave us a small example of how bad things can get.  Here the operational setting is given through “A former security architect demonstrates 15 different ways to break Copilot: “Microsoft is trying, but if we are honest here, we don’t know how to build secure AI applications”” and here is the premise now consider what (under Torts) customers will do, for example Coca Cola. Do you think they go after the so called hacker with not enough money to afford his/her own place or Microsoft with access to several bank vaults? Take the fortune 500 clients with claims of transgressions, do you really think there will be even a penny left in those Microsoft vaults when their legal teams are done with them? It might not be fair on Microsoft, but the setting of the use of the term AI opens up a whole new can of worms.

Then the Business Times (at https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/microsoft-openai-partnership-raises-antitrust-concerns-ftc-says) gives us ‘Microsoft-OpenAI partnership raises antitrust concerns, FTC says’ in this I might actually be a bit on the side of Microsoft. They give us “MICROSOFT’S US$13 billion investment in OpenAI raises concerns that the tech giant could extend its dominance in cloud computing into the nascent artificial intelligence (AI) market, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in a report released on Friday (Jan 17).” My issue here is that there is a setting we had in the past and in countries they created their version of the FTC. It was a power for good then, but there is now the setting that LLM’s and Deeper Machine Learning has grown to a scope that the FTC cannot really fathom. This IT solution goes beyond what they know or understand and all the tech companies face this. So either they grow their ‘programming with barricades’ side of it all, giving tech companies the flaws that the law imbued in whatever country it is based. And that for global companies will set a larger flawed premise. It is like parties are limited to what others have. As such all criminals will come to us with BB-guns, because that is what the police have. Does that sound realistic? I don’t think so. But this also falls straight into the premise that Fierce Networks gave us. It works out fine for Google, until Google gets barricaded I reckon. So this is a setting that the tech firms are set to whatever the wannabe’s can do, that is a direct strangling of commerce and innovation and it sets whomever develop the trigital computer system and if you think that these systems are fast now? The next level system develops with a trinary operating system running on that hardware will astound the world. As I see it should diminish the IBM Deep Blue to a simple calculator. The difference will be THAT much, so who will innovate that when the FTC strangles innovation?

And finally we get the CIO (at https://www.cio.com/article/3802745/microsoft-commits-to-ai-integration-but-delivers-no-particulars-to-differentiate-from-rivals.html) who gives us ‘Microsoft commits to AI integration, but delivers no particulars to differentiate from rivals’ and as I see it, it was already lagging too much against AWS, and now apparently Google is coming up fast and under these settings we get this headline? And the part that matters is given with “Analysts, however, agreed that the statement reflected no meaningful changes to Microsoft’s AI strategy. The bluntest assessment came from Ryan Brunet, a principal research director at the Info-Tech Research Group: “This is classic Microsoft. It’s very much the same old garbage.”” It reminded my towards an old premise from the late 80’s when the PC was exciting and new ‘Garbage in, Garbage out’ in the age when everyone considered themselves a Market Research executive and these wannabe’s had not even mastered the basic needs of data quality. It was a Gender versus Shoe size and they thought that the solution was add the Lambda test (I think it was Lambda). And I get it, Satya Nadella talks his own street side, the problem is that there are too many unknowns at present and he hopes to get all the others onboard before they have thoroughly selected their options and in light of the selected abuses, that setting is not a given, especially as Google seemingly doesn’t have these flaws (as far as I know neither does IBM or whatever AWS wields). 

A setting that was more and could set a lot of people in the liable column of choices. And some of this has been known for at least a quarter. When you add this with part one, you see why I predicted the downfall of Microsoft three years ago. And as I see it Microsoft walked to dotted line in a near perfect manner, too bad they never read the byline ‘this way to the crevice you will not avoid when getting too close’.

It is as some say ‘the way the cookie crumbles’. Darn still 4 hours until breakfast. Time to find a new story. Have a great Monday and if you cannot get into Azure today, feel free to investigate alternatives.

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January 8, 2025 · 00:57

Dens, first name Evie

That is the setting where I am. It was the BBC that gave me (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q78wn9g8zo) where we see ‘US designates Tencent a Chinese military company’ and my first question is “By what evidence?” You see, we can go back to the European tour by Colin Powell, armed with a silver briefcase where he travelled around Europe like a rockstar and that is how we got into the Iraqi war. They had graphics (probably a powerpoint presentation). Then we got the accusations against Huawei. We never got to see any evidence and as I saw it America was afraid to lose the 5G war and they basically still did. Now we get that Tencent is on route to basically throw Microsoft in the dirt and now they are a military complex? To do what? Unite gamers all over the world? And what evidence do we get? The simplistic line “including gaming and social media giant Tencent” Where is the evidence? Then we are given “The list serves as a warning to American companies and organisations about the risks of doing business with Chinese entities. While inclusion does not mean an immediate ban, it can add pressure on the US Treasury Department to sanction the firms.” Funny, Tencent was offered my gaming solution that would bring them 6 billion a year in phase one, after that the numbers become interesting. You see, Amazon had no interest (they never contacted me) and as such the Amazon Luna seems to be out of consideration, Google placed themself outside the scope as they deleted the Google Stadia and I will not let Microsoft near any of my IP (as I personally see them, they are losers that rely on the gods of mediocrity) which leaves Tencent. As I see it, the first stage would get them a nominal annual revenue of up to 6 billion, which is set to 50,000,000 consoles. After that with up to 200 million consoles the ride becomes exciting. I offered it also to Saudi Arabia and Kingdom Holding as they have larger concerns in this and There is a hidden pleasure in me to see Saudi Arabia end up above Microsoft, they are that irrelevant to me. It would also impact Facebook (Meta) revenue, but I cannot say to what extent (lack of numbers and achievable timeline)

A simple setting I saw 3 years ago and no one seemingly caught on. 

As such we see all kinds of wannabe players, but there is no evidence, at least it is not clearly given. And when we get to “In response to the latest announcement Tencent, which owns the messaging app WeChat, said its inclusion on the list was “clearly a mistake.” “We are not a military company or supplier. Unlike sanctions or export controls, this listing has no impact on our business,” a spokesperson for the company told the BBC.” Some might catch on that America is merely trying to to prevent Microsoft to go several steps closer to bankruptcy. So they are setting (in my personal believe) the status for Europe to shun Chinese firms. Yet the larger setting is that they are merely setting up the shop for Tencent to become close to an Arabic and Asian provider to entertainment. So in 2-3 years when Tencent, TikTok and Huawei grow beyond their borders we will see the scared Europeans go overboard and let them into their areas and as I see it Tencent is on the brink of shutting Microsoft out of a population of close to 3 billion people (Asia, India, Arabian nations, Indonesia and Bangladesh) and as such as they get the people on their side Europe with over half a billion people will be joining them as well. Microsoft might be a 3 trillion company but I reckon that in a year with failure after failure, their vaults and coffers will look rather slim-lined. 

And for the people thinking I am bluffing, well, you are allowed to think that, but consider a small setting. Microsoft lost to Nintendo and Sony and all we get all the junk news like that they are working on a handheld computer. The problem is that Nintendo is already there and Tencent is coming as well (exact time unknown to me). So Microsoft is already in third place and it will get worse from there, because you need people in the end and they are somewhere else and now that they are ‘advocating’ cloud gaming with TV’s we need to realise that this require too much bandwidth, as such that ship is sailing fast towards the abyss of failure (as I personally see it). Then we get their Surface pro and the short and sweet is that it is nowhere as useful as what Apple has. I see that as another failure. You see in the 11 years that contraption was around, it did not push Apple from the winning pedestal. No matter how much they spin the story. And when you consider that gaming and tablet as well as the fact that Blizzard and Bethesda were bought for 75 billion. So how much did they make? Nowhere near that much and Starfield was a bust from the beginning. Billions in the Surface pro and that is not paying off either. So how many failures can they survive? And now Tencent is entering gaming with the option to create serious waves. It is the impact of innovation. As I see it, spin gets you nowhere and now the new spin for players like Microsoft is to let the administration deal with the Chinese and with the return president elect Trump Microsoft is cheering as President elect Trump is anti-Chinese. But the trouble isn’t what they have. It is that over 4 billion do not see America as the centre of the universe. Which gives Tencent an option and when (speculative) Tencent will adhere to the stage of Harmony OS, the setting for Microsoft and Google goes down a mot more. You see HarmonyOS joined iOS and Android on the world stage. Yes, it is a mere third place, but every step they make is one that Apple and Google lose and Google has more problems because of the stupidity of the American legal system. They are just slicing pieces of the revenue pie for Huawei to take a bite from and as Huawei grows Google and Apple will lose some market share. And as Huawei and Tencent connect they will both grow stronger. How strong? That is not easy to say, but the small beginning will endure over time and America pushed for this and now it is too late. As the market changes Huawei and Tencent will robustly grow to some effect. Now we get the ‘accusation’ that Tencent is part of the Chinese military companies, which is formally known as the Section 1260H. And that is a nice game, but the others (pretty much all others) want to see evidence as Europe and the Commonwealth will demand evidence. They are seeing what revenue these two players bring and Microsoft merely brought failure after failure. As I see it innovation talks and failure walks alone and when someone will consider the turncoat metrics of Microsoft trying to get whatever they can as their console and tablet fails to do. As for Azure? It is lagging behind AWS (Amazon) by 50%, so don’t get your hope up. Another failure as I see it. So how much revenue is lost over these three parts only? So as the secretary of the Pentagon is not too busy (Miss E Dens) we would like to see the evidence that Tencent is part of the Chinese military. I don’t say it is not, I merely want to see evidence for a change (we never saw the WMD evidence, or the Huawei evidence), just for argument sake.

Have a great day, my Wednesday started 3000 seconds ago.

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January 4, 2025 · 15:51

A changed setting

That is where I found myself a few days ago. The realisation that things weren’t what they were supposed to be. Now, it is not really new. Settings change, but for the most it is up to the makers to herald a certain stage of doing business. This is a strange telling, because I believe in the Robocop setting that Kurtwood Smith handed to us “Good business is where you find it” and for the most I believe this is true. The stage was handed to us by Satya Nadella when on December 26th 2024 he gave us “the era of SaaS as we know it is coming to an end, giving way to integrated platforms where AI becomes the central driver. This transformation is poised to disrupt traditional tools and workflows, paving the way for a new generation of applications.” Not only do I not believe him at present. He is paving the way for people to set doubt in a place and push them all towards Azura (i’ll get to this later). Still, this is a weird statement from Microsoft when we got on July 22nd 2024 ‘Microsoft joins forces with Austrade to help its Australian SaaS partners go global’ (at https://news.microsoft.com/en-au/features/microsoft-joins-forces-with-austrade-to-help-its-australian-saas-partners-go-global/), seems like a strange setting. And with the statement “Microsoft has today announced a new program in collaboration with the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) to help local partners that offer software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions accelerate their international growth” It almost sounds like the Asian joke “Two Wongs don’t make a Write” (or something like that). 

You see, as I personally see it, Microsoft is in trouble. It hatched its eggs too widely and too many of them are not paying off. There is only so many losses you can book and not take a massive hit. And as long as people are ‘dependent’ on Microsoft Nadella can sing whatever he wants. And that is where the shoe becomes a tight fit (and not in a good way). There is a cluster of people reposting and optionally with their ‘own’ insights as why it is such a stellar move. But there are issues.  You see, the first is that SaaS is a good solution for a lot of people, but as the Indian indie developers are gaining in that field Microsoft needs to haul exceedingly into another field where it is just them and their ‘agents’. And Microsoft will get a percentage for EVERY deployment we face.

The second setting is that SaaS goes together with IaaS and PaaS, but with the Microsoft setup all PaaS becomes Azure. It was the Microsoft solution to get from the statement “It is very possible to link single service of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS on 3 different cloud providers.” We got this answer three years ago and that never worked for Microsoft. You see, Microsoft wants it all. They failed too many times (in several fields). The need it all to survive and if enough are connected Microsoft (as I see it) prevents collapse. As I see it the AWS (Amazon) and the Oracle’s Platform as a service are vastly superior to Microsoft. As such Microsoft is dwindled down to size and they do not like it. I also think that Googles PaaS service is better than. Microsoft, but that is a more personal view then evidence driven. As such Microsoft needs to change speed and I reckon that the impending death proclamation of Software as a Service was Microsoft’s way to go and that is what Satya Nadella went with. The issue in this is an additional stage. In the 5 days of Christmas it is all that LinkedIn went with. I was torpedoed with these ‘news casts’ and opinionated settings from hundreds of sources (not only on LinkedIn) and these millennial sales screw ups all wanted a piece of that pie. They want it all whilst the getting was good and it is Christmas, wasn’t it? 

It is at this point when I wonder what Huawei has in store with their cloud solutions. It is the media appeasement of Microsoft that I wonder what the ‘enemy’ will bring us and that is where the setting stalls. The attack on our senses is almost infinite and some are deciding where we are able to (or allowed) to look. And we are all in the setting that we want to know where we can go and places like LinkedIn will not give us the full news making them propaganda channels for people like Microsoft. So when will we get the real deal of how to avoid Microsoft? I wonder what Oracle and/or AWS will bring to the table, them and Google would make a good replacement for Microsoft. But will we see that given to us, or is the influencer scene of Microsoft drowning it all out?

I cannot say for sure because the others are seemingly staying silent. Have a great day you all.

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September 25, 2024 · 21:13

Good News

Well, it is good news of a sort. The Guardian reported yesterday (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/23/violent-crime-murder-rate-fbi-2023) that ‘FBI confirms US murders declined in 2023, contrary to Republican claims’, it is here we get “Murder dropped by more than 11% in largest single-year decline in decades while rape and other crimes also fell”, as plenty of us consider the one nation that is mostly in decline (due to the Karen’s) it is nice that we see an article like this. We also get “Meanwhile, the broader category of violent crime nationwide decreased about 3%, said the data, which is audited and confirms earlier reporting from unaudited statistics”, as well as “the FBI said rape decreased by an estimated 9.4%, property crime dropped 2.4% and burglary fell by an estimated 7.6%”. Some say that it is nothing to write home about. The larger setting is that in a country as overloaded with 343,477,335 people both good and less so. These drops are nothing to be sneered at. I say hurrah to the police and FBI department on a national scale. I am still of the mind that criminals tend to find other ‘activities’ to fuel their need for greed and violence. What it is is anyone’s guess. In certain fields I tend to be a gloomy source of skepticism. And it is here that Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said: “Data drives policy, and without having a complete understanding of the problem, we cannot effectively address this significant surge in hate violence” OK, I will agree with that. Data tends to be the driving instigator in understanding certain crimes. It is also a little weird that hate violence would be the driving power against sexual assaults and burglaries. One does not optionally fuel the other side and as such I feel uncertain what to think. That is the other side of data. The lack of numbers does not fuel the understanding into another side. It is not that we can state with any kind of ‘comprehension’ that (2022) 16 sexual assaults + 84 burglaries = 14 sexual assaults + 58 burglaries + 28 hate crimes (2023) it just presumptuously does not work that way. But in the end crime went down to some extent and for that we can say ‘hurray ye police departments’ and ‘hurray ye FBI’. We then get ““Our administration has improved and expanded background checks, announced the single largest investment in youth mental health in history, and been an unprecedented resource to states, cities, and local communities,” said Kamala Harris” I am less convinced here. I am not debating the soul and spirit of the thought, there is a larger stage to consider. I wrote a few years ago that the ATF is staggeringly underfunded and for the longest time there was no head at the organisation. There was a lack of IT funds and all kinds of settings that sets the ATF with decades of lack of innovations at their disposal. In addition, last year the WBUR (in 2023) gave its audience ‘Does the man enforcing the country’s gun laws have the tools to do the job?’ I had raised that amendment issue a few years earlier. They gave us “ATF protects the public from crimes involving firearms, explosives, arson, and the diversion of alcohol and tobacco products. Regulates lawful commerce in firearms and explosives, and provides worldwide support to law enforcement, public safety, and industry partners.” All whilst the gun lobby does everything to make things harder for the ATF. And all whilst all the Tech biggies (Amazon with AWS, Microsoft with Azure and Google with Gemini) have lacked in assisting the ATF in ways that work. I am not placing blame in any of those three, but the lack of innovation in IT power in the ATF is staggering. And in that setting the FBI and the local police forces need to do their work. Weird is it not? Then in 2020 we see ‘Rethinking ATF’s Budget To Prioritise Effective Gun Violence Prevention’ apart from the fact that the ATF was without a permanent director for seven years the wondering setting by Kamala Harris with “Our administration has improved and expanded background checks” but I have issues with the statement. I will fully agree with the statement that it was true, but consider a car in 2022 when it was going at a speed of 23 mph, the fact that it now does 43 mph makes the statement true, but when we consider that the fact that the ATF is to be seen as The Tiger Brigades (1974) where the officers relied on something not dissimilar of the Ford model T, the improvements would be impressive all whilst the criminals out there relied on their Lamborghini Countach LP400 (179 mph), you do see that the police has absolutely no way of winning. When we realise this a lot more could be done, but political players relying on the gun lobby donations are o so willing to throw a clog in the wheels (the origin of the expression saboteur) and the larger issue is not that America needs to stop crime. It is important that they are gaining access to the tools that allows them to do their job.

So I am not attacking the good news we were given, but the fact that the truth is that certain organisations were supposed to do their job with one hand on their back. The lacking funds for infrastructure does not help I reckon. 

All reasons for applauding the local police departments and the FBI for getting some of the work done. So to all involved: “Well Done!”

I am now pondering a thought I had yesterday and a larger premise. Not sure yet what to do, but it is a consideration to behold. And now, with my eyes on the Scotia bank on Yonge street (Toronto) I will sign off and enjoy a glass of ice tea.

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