Whatsapp was revolutionary here, and Skype did not react at all.
They moved from chat to voice calls, and Skype was just standing still. Did not understand that response at all.
Also, Ballmer made a lot of build decisions over buy decisions. Whatsapp would have been a good buy.
Looking back, I’m sort of glad that Ballmer+Sinofsky or even Myerson are not in charge of major things anymore.
Skype was a good buy. Nokia buy was so very late in their lifespan. Also, it did not help at all that Nokia just decided to quit Windows Phone one fine day and make Symbian stuff again. They were playing bluff with their major partner - Microsoft.
The buyout of Nokia was totally defensive in the end, and Ballmer lost a lot of support within MS – including Gates and Satya.
Ballmer was a great reactionary leader. His response to Red ring is still legendary. His investments in Azure, Bing are paying off now after a decade. But he could not figure out a way to do inorganic growth and investments. They ended up being a 90s company operating in a world ruled by Facebook/Google’s fast paced progress.
The Discord buy makes complete sense. You can cross off Valve, if Discord is bought out.
PS - One fantastic thing about Satya is that he weeded out a lot of the folks who were operating their own little fiefdoms within MS.
I hope talks failed so we get that money towards game studios.
Acquiring Discord won’t impact acquiring other game sudios/publishers. I would also argue that Discord being acquired could bring even more interest from the consumers in Microsoft in general, and increase the potential reach of Game Pass/xCloud, which would increase investments in games.
Money for Discord has little to no bearing on monies “set aside” for Xbox purchases. Not sure where this zero sum ideology stems from, but that’s not how this type of situation works. Beyond that, Discord could bring additional technologies that could benefit Xbox directly.
Good insight. Yeah a Discord purchase could be much more visionary. Not just a reactive or trend chasing purchase. I believe there’s a lot of innovative opportunities that could come out of owning Discord. I still think it’s more likely Discord goes public but if Microsoft gets them, it’s a huge opportunity for gaming. Having game streaming, voice and video communication, sharing of files, marketplace, etc in an app that’s already on phones and PCs now integrated into a cloud that houses their game streaming opens up a lot of exciting possibilities.
Getting Discord may open up more long term possibilities for content. It would be a strategic purchase that could drive faster Game Pass adoption on PC and mobile. Faster Game Pass adoption leads to higher quality games.
?
Counterpoint: Slow Game Pass adoption means MS spend more money on deals to make the platform more attractive 
Seriously though, I agree that it’s important to look at the whole picture and to bear in mind that not every acquisition the megacorp does will directly benefit us.
Now we’re all talking about acquisition, but let’s talk about the other possibility, that they go public. I wanted to know people’s thoughts on what Brad Sams speculated about : do you think MS would try to immediately acquire a significants share in Discord to be able to have a seat there, and influencing decisions ?
I only want this so Nitro can be a permanent perk of Game Pass Ultimate.
Fair point. Selfishly, I think this could make the Xbox ecosystem much better for anyone who’s either got friends using devices outside of the console or who plans on moving between devices themselves in regards to the Xbox ecosystem. Discord opens up many cool opportunities for sharing, streaming and community. There’s going to be more quality games than most of us will have time for on Game Pass. Ecosystem enhancements can improve the overall experience.
This really says it all. Great point, and well-made!
it’s happening
it looks like discord is actually going to be acquired
Now we’re talking.
Nice
God damn, you don’t understand how hype I am that Discord will be on console. It’s basically the only missing element of my friends jumping fully into the Xbox ecosystem
It is more important than what most people think, to Azure, to Xbox community aspects, to MS’s image with consumers.