Aggressive Microsoft: How is it challenging Apple, Google, and Sony

Microsoft is taking the fight to its rivals across the board. The pending Activision Blizzard deal, partnership with OpenAI, and now a mobile game store to challenge the Apple-Google duopoly in the app market. The tech giant is on an ambitious mission to change the status quo and rise to the top of segments, in which it previously did not have enough success in.

• Microsoft is riding the wave of its AI success. The company has leaped to the front of the pack alongside OpenAI in the AI race.
• However, the company does not want to be complacent as it did with its Windows monopoly. Once written off as a 20th-century phenomenon, the Seattle-based company has rediscovered itself as an innovator and wants to keep going.

Microsoft has watched many innovations pass by while it sat around. The company's cultural shift began after Satya Nadella took reigns in 2014. The tech giant shed years of dust and defensive posturing for a new outlook and a start-up mentality. That is evident in how it leapfrogged Google in the AI race. The offensive mentality made the change for Microsoft.

Microsoft launched Bing in 2009 to challenge Google's monopoly in search. However, as we all know, Bing went into an obscure realm, while Google thrived. Unless you used Edge, no one really saw Bing. No one even talked about it. Things changed last month, though. The company introduced the new Bing, powered by GPT-4, OpenAI's most advanced AI system yet.

The company has reinvented Bing. The new Bing is a search engine that is more than a search engine. In simple words, it can run rings around Google. While Google is no stranger to AI, its defensive and cautious approach cost it the first phase of this race. Microsoft is in the driving seat of the future of search for now.

Microsoft has now turned its attention to app stores - a space Google and Apple have dominated. The company is planning to build a mobile games store. The tech giant is banking on the EU's Digital Market Act (DMA) to fulfill its app store ambitions. The DMA will allow companies to load their app stores on iPhones and Androids.

With the new app store, Microsoft aims to offer Xbox content and content from its partners on mobiles. The company previously had issues with Apple over its Cloud Gaming app. Both Google and Apple also charge users for in-app purchases. An app store from Microsoft is bound to make Google and Apple uncomfortable. The company's gaming offense does not end there, though.

Last year, Microsoft shocked everybody when it announced its decision to acquire Activision Blizzard, the company behind iconic gaming franchises, including Call of Duty, for $69 billion. The deal has been in limbo due to regulatory antipathy. However, the acquisition is aimed at challenging Sony's dominance in the gaming console market. As expected, Sony is trying its best to stop this deal from happening.