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People forget that before about 2000 or so, Microsoft was bigger than the next 10 or so software companies, <<combined>>. And had much higher profit margins that the other tech companies.

IBM created the playbook, Microsoft perfected it, FAANG copied it.

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One distinction between Microsoft and early FAANG (except for Apple): FAANG cut out the distributor and kept those profits themselves. Microsoft always had distributors as a key component of their platform sales.

That was by necessity more than choice. The internet wasn't really a viable option at the time.

Presumably the distributor is the company that supplies the internet connection we now consider mandatory.

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