Satya Nadella's BIG move, Microsoft stops 30-year-old practice and drops Apple, IBM, Meta, NVIDIA from its list of…
Microsoft has moved from its 30 years old tradition and stopped identifying individual competitors in its annual regulatory filings. They had this practice and had maintained it for decades. The tech giant's 2024 annual report, released Wednesday of 101 pages but does not mention any of its historical adversaries like Apple or IBM, nor does it name new rivals like Anthropic or Databricks. What Was Microsoft's Tradition?
In last year's report, Microsoft officially listed over 25 companies as competitors and which was part of the pattern they were following since 1994. However the new report states that Microsoft faces competition across markets like productivity software, PC operating systems, and cloud infrastructure.
According to a CNBC report, citing sources the change shows a shift toward categorizing competition by sector rather than by company, aligning with the fast-paced nature of the tech industry. How Apple, Meta, Nvidia Mention Their Rivals?
While Microsoft has opted for vagueness, many peers continue to identify their rivals by name. Apple, Meta, and Nvidia still follow the industry norm but they have also moved big names from it. Amazon hasn't named competitors since 1999, Tesla stopped in 2020, and Alphabet dropped the practice in 2022.
But Microsoft executives haven't stopped acknowledging rivals altogether. CEO Satya Nadella referenced Amazon during the company's earnings call this week. And in May, Microsoft Cloud and AI head Scott Guthrie indirectly called out AWS for lagging behind in advanced GPU systems, noting that some providers 'still haven't launched a GB200 offering,' a nod to Nvidia's powerful NVL72 systems.
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