I just listened to the Acquired podcast guys talk to Balmer. Steve actually deserves a huge amount of the credit for Azure that Satya enjoys today.

- Created the windows server product

- Created the "rent a server" business line

- Identified the need for a VM kernel and hired the right people

- Oversaw MSFT's build out of web services (MSN, Xbox Live, Bing) which gave them the distributed systems and uptime know-how

- Picked Satya to take over Azure, and then to succeed him

No, you couldn't. The natural extension is related to customer relationships, familiarity, lock in (somewhat).

Google is not behind capability wise, they are in front of MSFT actually. The customer relationships matter a whole lot more.

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