Speaking of ecosystems

[wcpusr]

Why would anyone want to be in an ecosystem different than Microsoft's. It has absolutely everything you need for in any aspect of your digital or everyday life.

It has the best consumer and business oriented software, hardware and services for normal users and for professionals, mostly. Neither Apples nor Googles ecosystems are so well developed in terms of all hardware+software+services, yet Microsoft is fighting on too many fronts and losing on many. All they need is a little push. Here I made a list with what's going on right now, and what I think would be appropriate for MS to have.

hardware
surface phone | surface pro | surface book | surface hub | xbox one | band | hololens | keyboards + mice

software
windows | windows server | edge | office | skype | visual studio | dynamics erp and crm | groove

services
onedrive | bing | msn | cloud | azure | biztalk | office365 | sharepoint | msdn | technet | student programs

For the full experience I think Microsoft needs to acquire Adobe and Spotify and to addopt Java and Swift, almost natively in Visual Studio.
By buying Adobe (not partnering with) MS would buy the entire creative community which is certainly on Apple's side right now. This is the real Apple problem solution, I think. I'm talking all kinds of designers that prefer using Adobe Suite on Macs (whatever the reason might be) and the whole Hollywood and music industry too, that already use Apple Final Cut things. Adobe has competitive software in its pack. Also Microsoft needs a well developed music service, which is Spotify (and if MS is late, my bets are on Sony to buy Spotify (Playstation and Sony Entertainment would benefit)). Finally Java will get them the open source community and Android developers which would help MS fight Google and Oracle in their own game. Swift is the new kid, that better be adopted now, or the situation will become the next JavaScript vs C# battle soon (Microsoft silently admitting defeat, at the moment of speaking..).
My two other suggestions for Microsoft is to take a serious look at the two other important industries for humans - sport and healthcare. (They have the Band, but zero ecosystem of apps and services around it). And finally the upcoming car revolution.

 

[HeyCori]

It's not just a battle of device sales, it's also a battle of perception. There seems to be this believe that if you're using a Windows product (any product) then it's fundamentally broken. Now, there's a legitimate case to be argued that the Lumia 950 was hatched early, as evident by user and professional reviews. And yup, some of the official Microsoft apps still need polish. But people either a) Aren't aware that other platforms have software problems. Or b) Prefer to sweep those problems underneath the rug.

Here are some examples from my own life.

A video of my work iMac doing whatever the heck this is. No rhyme or reason. Everything just crashed right in the middle of my work and I had to reset the machine.

iTunes stopped communicating with the Apple TV at work because... reasons.

Our work switched to Gmail because Apple Webmail wouldn't properly sync with Apple Mail.

The stats spreadsheet for one of our locations disappeared from Google Drive. It has to be rebuilt from scratch.

This morning my Kindle Fire HD crashed while tabbing to the home screen. I had to soft reset.

My new Fire TV would only play a few seconds of video before crashing.

The iPad 2s at work (I know, they're old) stopped updating apps.

And aside from the iPad 2 problem all that happened to me last month. But people look at me with disgust if I tell them my tablet runs Windows 8.1.

 

[was2wuz]

I think the majority of users don't carry such a high value of brand loyalty for things. They'll mix and match based on popular demand and we already know the demand is skewed towards Apple and Google.

That being said imo, Microsoft's vast eco is most caterable to the commercial market, while I feel Apple and Google focus much more on the everyday masses. Google has gone as far as partnering with TP link to get a google router in your house lol