Lets use Netflix and the Gold link as an example.
What direct value does adding Netflix to the 360 grant MS? Possibly a few more systems sold, but it doesn't exactly help them grow the service and it will be extremely difficult to analyze and determine just how many systems that feature sold.
MS does not get a cut of the Netflix service fees, so nothing there.
So in exchange for MS developing the entire player for the 360 and supporting it, they make money on it through their Gold subscription service.
What can we look forward to as a result? Well right now you can only stream locally. What if in the future you could take a party (8 different systems) into Netflix and watch a movie synced across all the connection together. If you think Microsoft would fund an improvement like that without having direct financial investment coming from Netflix then you do not understand business.
And actually yes, my working at Microsoft does have bearing on this. People like to argue that the ones at the top are the greedy bastards. Those people have never met Jallard or Rbach.
In regards to Microsoft trying to buy, coping, and destroying. Its easy to say that you have worked at several companies destroyed by MS, but really, some proof would be nice. What companies?
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft only buys a handful of companies each year. They enter even less markets than that each year. More software companies are created each year to take advantage of the Windows, Office, and Xbox platforms each year than Microsoft could put out of business in a dozen or two years.
If Microsoft really destroyed software companies like you insinuate, they would not have anyone working with them. All the companies would just hurry over to Apple or Linux. But the fact of the matter is that Microsoft is a great company to partner with. Prior to returning to Microsoft this year, I worked for a small company that developed Video Conferencing and Collaberation software. Said product competed directly with Groove and Live Meeting. Yet we regularly worked directly with the Windows and Office teams getting direct support from developers, QA, and PM on issues we ran into getting our product to work. In a lot of ways, Microsoft helped us become even more successful even though they were competing with our product.
Does Microsoft "copy" other products? Sort of, but so does everyone else. Software innovation, once again, isn't about building a whole new thing. Its about incremental improvements on top of existing technologies. Take Trophies, one could argue that they copied Achievements. Is there a certain amount of truth to that, of course there is. But did they innovate in their own right through the method of representing score and providing a level up mechanic, definately. What about XMB? One could argue that it copies many UI designs from well before it came out, yet it provides several key improvements including graphic design, usability, and flexability. Does NXE copy XMB, a bit yea. But steps it up bigtime in terms of graphical representations of the content. Do Avatars copy Miis, yea, but they are also accessible to all game developers and come with a complete set of tools that enable you to impliment them in your title. They also have a few dozen preprogrammed expressions and an entire set of APIs tied to the skeletal framework to enable developers to customize their actions to work in their games.
What is Microsoft hated so much? Well, there are a lot of fanboys in the world that stick by their companies come hell or high water. There are a lot of lawyers in the world who will sue anyone for anything. And there are some companies that they did put out of business which had employees that likely feel scorned and take out their anger on Microsoft as apposed to their own company that failed to compete.
Speaking of which, I would love to hear an example of where Microsoft suddenly jacked the price on something after they won a market. If anyting Microsot has always decreased the costs over time and started competing at significantly lower prices.
Take Office, when it came out at around $650 for the suite of 4 applications, competing sets of products cost over $1500 to purchase them and they did not work together as well. Today you can get the home version of Office with more applications that it used to ship with for under $300. Under $150 if bundled with a new PC purchase.
When Windows started to take off, competiting products like OS2Warp cost over $600 to buy one license. Windows only cost roughly $200 retail and $60 OEM. Today, Windows costs about $54 OEM and $150 retail for the Home version. Yea there is an Ultimate version with a lot more for about $400 retail and $115 OEM, but that is a new product line and not required.
