No matter what technologies MSFT have, the number one thought in people’s minds these days when you say big tech is simply FB G Amazon and Apple. It’s no longer MSFT up there with them. Definitely a stigma thing.
FB is big ad. To say that MSFT is not big tech is absurd.
They have a widely used desktop operating system, a top-3 public cloud, they make their own laptops and other hardware, they make multiple widely used programming languages, they have one of the most widely used databases, they have a well regarded research division ... the list goes on
The scope of tech that MSFT works on is as big as anyone, and is what they primarily make their money from ... so why wouldn't anyone think it's "big tech"?
The Silicon Valley's idea of Big Tech didn't include MS a few months ago when they were leading the pack for most valuable company in the world. And somehow they're escaping anti-trust scrutiny right now too, so maybe it's better to have a less sexy profile.
Part of that could also be that Microsoft is much more willing to do things in order to avoid looking like a monopoly more than just forbidding the word monopoly. A lot of effort has been spent in bringing SQL Server to Linux as opposed to continuing to use it as a way to lock people into using Windows Server. That's not a charitable act mind you, but I doubt Microsoft under Balmer would have done it.
Disclaimer: I do work for Microsoft on SQL, but I am not in management nor do I speak in any capacity for Microsoft.
The only tech company that my grandparents from the old country could name is Microsoft. I think there is definitely a skewed perception from the commentators living in USA/CAN.
I was considering .NET Core for a project but they appear to have fallen behind the JVM rather dramatically when it comes to GC performance. The JVM now has low latency collectors for very large heaps. Is there any work being done in .NET Core to catch up?
