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Comment by diyftw | Hacker News Reader

There's a reason there's no M in FAANG. Unlike those "upstarts", Microsoft is more like the Lockheed Martin or GE of tech. There is so much Microsoft software in use in the gov't (especially the DoD) that it would be precarious to prosecute/regulate them.

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> There's a reason there's no M in FAANG.

Yeah, there's a very simple reason: the FAANG acronym was coined around 2013 when Microsoft was still in a rut, Ballmer was still CEO, and their stock was still down from its dot-com bubble peak.

I'm pretty sure that at least part of the reason is that Netflix (despite being much less relevant) is in the Silicon Valley, while Microsoft is not.

So this is specifically a Silicon Valley / Hacker News thing (notably relevant to lifestyle and employment issues).

The rest of the world has been using GAFAM instead, even before 2013. (I've also seen "the big 5" sometimes.)

But Amazon is also based in Washington

Thanks, uh, I am not sure how I missed that...

That isn't the reason nor is that a convincing argument to not enforce anti-trust laws against a particular company. So one is allowed to have a monopoly in government software and the rest are not?

Reducing competition is one of the goals of a monopolist and anti-trust laws applies to all, no exceptions.

Don't you think there are other companies competing against Microsoft for government contracts like Amazon, Google or even Palantir that includes software?

Also, Apple isn't some "upstart" either.

> Microsoft is more like the Lockheed Martin or GE of tech

This analogy is apt in so many ways (in addition to the prevalence of MS software in the .gov setting)

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