It controlled the gates to the city. When barbarians showed up with their discontinuous innovations, it could shut the gates. When it showed up with its own versions of same, it could open the gates. They were Gates’s gates, and the franchise was very lucrative indeed. It has taken the advent of mobile and cloud, disruptions more than a decade in the making, to put a dent in this position. But even now, Microsoft throws off cash flow that is the envy of anyone in the tech industry.
