Originally posted by jp144
While I don't think "fan" is quite the right word, it's not the wrong one either. All makers of products and services have a need to build a loyalty base. These are repeat customers because they believe in the product, and offer invaluable free "word of mouth" advertising to their friends and family.
We still see this strategy in cars/trucks today, even though sure a car is really just a "utility" that gets us from point A to point B. But when guys say things like "I'm a Chevy man" or "I'm a Ford man" they're really saying their "fans", loyal repeat customers, of the company and their products.
That said, MS has screwed the pooch in the last excruciating painful 3 years under Nadella. That guy doesn't understand even the remote concept of building a loyal customer base. He never would have canceled Windows Mobile without first having Andromeda (running Core OS) sitting proudly on store shelves as Windows Mobile proud successor. If or no other reason than by doing so you royally tick off developers and fans who invested heavily in your platform. That anger only boils over and ends up with them spurning MS to all their friends and family.
Where does that leave Nadella and Microsoft? It leaves them with users who are FORCED to use their products during working hours. It leaves them with an entire generation of young people who see them as an old stodgy has-been. And when they grow up, and are the decision makers in the Enterprise they will one day replace all the Microsoft servers, desktops, and laptops with Google based products, just as surely as our generation replaced our IBM mainframes and dumb terminals with PCs.