The difference, though, is these AI IDE startups are essentially built on a fork of Microsoft VS Code.
And MSFT has many end game options to dump free IDEs on the market with integrated AI.
And MSFT has many end game options to dump free IDEs on the market with integrated AI.
The question is do they want to go in that direction? (And also if they do, do they only allow Gemini model or do they open it up to a choice of various models (to also include models not related to Google/Gemini) and/or BYOK). I don't see why not because I believe they will slaughter Cursor, Windsurf, et al if so ...
Then again there's also Android Studio, so what do I know. (not a lot)
2. Even if it's thinkable in last 4-5 years due to raising Popularity of web IDE, Android studio was built before that and they chose the IntelliJ platform.
3. Google also has flutter and go.
Zed is a standalone editor written from scratch and it hasn't had the same success as Cursor (yet).
JetBrains IDEs are my absolute favorite. JetBrains controls the entire stack but they haven't had the same results yet. Cursor and Claude Code have some sort of product differentiation here that is hard to argue against.
One of the oddities of Instagram and WhatsApp is both of them were twists on what the expected formula for user value was at the time. (Retro photos and international SMS replacement respectively).