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Interesting examples with WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, which were both dominant for about 10 years during the 1980s and early 1990s. Since then, Microsoft has been dominant in the same segment - for a whopping 30-35 years. During this time, they've made massive, unpopular interface overhauls, released products that nearly everyone dislikes but still has to use for some reason (Teams comes to mind), offer basically zero end user support and have moved from one-off license purchases to SaaS subscriptions.

Either Microsoft has managed to get it "just right" for more than three decades, or there's something else at play, too.



I think this "something else" is called something along the lines of "monopoly", "market domination", "entrenched in politics & military", "embrace extend extinguish" or "buying everything that could potentially become competition"


As someone who has to use a lot of MS products in my work, I can confirm this "something else" has very little to do with software quality.


> released products that nearly everyone dislikes but still has to use for some reason (Teams comes to mind),

Principal-agent problem. The dumbass that is buying Teams for your company isn't the front-line grunt that has to use it.




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