Evaluating Microsoft's Opportunities (Chapter 4)

Ch. 4 - Evaluating Environmental Opportunities

This chapter speaks about how to take advantage of opportunities and evaluate treats as an opportunity to neutralize.

Microsoft falls into multiple strategies across this chapter:

• Network industry ("increasing-returns" industry)
• In the emerging market of personal computers, Microsoft made the ultimate network decision to bundle the software "Internet Explorer" for free with every Windows operating machine. This gave customers free access to the internet and allowed Microsoft to grow exponentially as more people wanted to connect with one another on the same platform. The firms decision to provide free software for internet access, rather than charge an extra price for the software, vaulted Microsoft into a monopoly in the personal computing realm, and extended the position by forcing free internet to be the industry standard.
• First movers advantage
• Building off the early success, Microsoft used the "first movers advantage" to dominate the computer application segment with Office applications. This is why you see the majority of individuals and businesses using Office 365 applications such as Word, Excel, or Outlook to communicate and share ideas.
• Winner-take-all
• Currently, in terms of computer applications, Microsoft dominating the market through Process Innovation. The company is constantly creating larger customer switching cost. Now that these applications are the standard in many scenarios, switching to a competitor is not worth the cost, learning curve, and hassle of switching. 

I absolutely loved the books figure (shown below) given about the importance of innovation type during the life cycle of an industry. Microsoft used strategies as I described above to succeed by following perfectly along the curve.