Been reading about how Microsoft is looking to add ChatGPT to its Azure cloud platform and make it available to customers that way.
This seems like very smart poker from MSFT.
And I think most people might be looking at the wrong competitor here (looking at Google rather than Amazon). Here’s why I think that.
I think the battlefield here (for the moment) is cloud, not search.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the dominant cloud services provider, with Microsoft second (Azure) and Google third. AWS is responsible for the vast majority of Amazons profit, even though it only brings in a minority of its revenue.
But offering customers of Azure the ChatGPT functionality gives Microsoft a genuine unique selling point over its largest rival in cloud. And until Amazon plugs that capability hole it might be vulnerable to losing some very valuable market share to Azure.
Cloud is internet infrastructure worth billions currently, with plenty of runway left. This way of going to market with ChatGPT might give Microsoft a big edge in that market and give it time to figure out how to better integrate it with its other services while the cash rolls in.
Thoughts?
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