According to Guthrie, Microsoft’s early dominance didn’t happen because Windows was a superior operating system. Microsoft relentlessly focused on making it easy for developers to build for Windows. “No one buys a platform by itself,” Guthrie notes, “they buy it for the applications that run on top.” Microsoft’s success was built on a foundation of tools such as Quick Basic and Microsoft C, which armed developers to build the ecosystem that made Windows indispensable.
Then came Visual Basic, a tool Guthrie calls “absolutely revolutionary.” At a time when building a graphical user interface was a soul-crushing exercise in writing error-prone code, Visual Basic let developers drag and drop buttons, double-click, write a few lines of code, and run. It “transformed development” by lowering the barrier to entry, enabling a generation of programmers who were more focused on solving business problems than mastering arcane syntax.
This playbook—empower the developer, win the platform—is core to Microsoft’s DNA. It’s why the company faltered in the early 2010s when its developer story grew stale, and it’s precisely how it engineered its stunning comeback.
