Yep, this is the sort of thing happens when you've deeply internalized that trustworthiness and continuity is not important. Microsoft today is not a serious company, it is not run by serious people, and it is at the forefront of a deeply unserious industry.
In this context it would presumably mean not casually deleting your customers' data.
When people say a company is unserious they almost always mean that they're not thinking about, and taking seriously, the work that their customers do. This seems like a classic example of that.
Not the person you’re responding to, but I’d say serious here means committed to delivering value for customers, willing to take lower profits in the short term to be steadfast and reliable, deeply introspective about process (with transparent communication).
Just, you know, taking business seriously. Like they did even 6 or 8 years ago.
The core business now is execs ego-stroking each other and hoping disaster strikes after they cash out.
When Satya came in there was a dramatic shift in culture, and things were improving. I won’t argue they were super-serious, but at least getting better, and focusing on the business rather than the internal strife that Balmer loved to much.
But now… just the opposite. This IS a deeply unserious business. The tech bros got the keys to the combine and have no idea WTF to do, so it’s all cosplay.
producing an os with a focus on utility to end user would be a start. Even just something that makes some form of effort to give users a return on investment on their hardware. Right now, you unluck massive headroom, battery life, and stability, on a laptop by simple putting linux on it. All that despite windows enjoying better all around driver support from manufacturers.
A serious company would never have allowed its core product to turn into the clown show it currently is, yet here we are, a massive corporation pushes an OS that feels vibe coded, and is largly propped up by what little residual community goodwill/ignorance exsists.
Azure is Microsoft's attempt to get into the market that Amazon dominates with AWS. Microsoft traditionally was a software company. Microsoft today is a desperate company trying to make money and stay relevant in a world fed up with the bull crap that they have been peddling over the years. Windows could have been so much more and better, but it's now a sold out clown show, just like XBox, just like Office, just like every other thing they have ever made. In the 35+ years I have been around Microsoft products, I have never seen a product where they didn't over promise and under deliver. Frankly, that is their MO: Over promise, under deliver, and move on the moment they have squeezed every dime they can out of a product. They are not an honest company, they never have been.
IMO it all started going downhill for Microslop with Windows Product Activation in Windows XP. That was the first shot across the bow and sign they were going to be user-hostile.
I started with Microsoft in the DOS, Win 3.0, NT Server 3.51 days. I'll never forget Microsoft promising, writing books that promised, RAS would work on NT 4.0 Server. It was never stable, never consistent. I ended up losing my first job as a Systems Administrator over it. I will never forget being burned by them. Then, there was the joke known as Windows ME (Windows MFE (Multiple Fatal Exceptions)). By Windows 2000, I was over it. I eventually got begged into taking on a Windows Server 2003 / Windows 8 install and talk about a constant pain in my butt. Active Directory seemed so hostile to any external hardware controlling the network. I don't think I could ever miss it. I have been doing Linux and Unix happily for almost 30 years now and I am so grateful for the open source movement. What KDE has turned into today is nothing short of amazing. What Valve has done with Steam and Proton is also nothing short of amazing. It makes everything including MacOS seem like it is a decade behind. I have to use MacOS for my 3d modeling software, but there isn't a day that goes by that I hope to see the news that its finally been ported to Linux.
Selling backup for data that is stored in the cloud (whether selling solution as a provider or selling any solution (even free one) internally to your team), is one of the hardest things in the world.
Microsoft is serious because the world is full of people with needs who do not know better and Microsoft is still the default to serve those needs.
Something does not have to be useful, benign, consistent, worthwhile, or deserving to exist in order to be serious.
For example: Losing an arm and an eye to a fireworks accident, being grievously assaulted in an alley, or having Microsoft arbitrarily delete all your data, are all very serious things. So, I think it is fair to say Microsoft can still be called serious.
