Microsoft’s Holey Trinity (sic)

The left hand, right hand, and jazz hands of the AI gods

The Holey Trinity (sic) among software, cloud, and hardware — including Microsoft’s strategic holes therein

The last few weeks have provided a rather significant mile-marker in the generative artificial intelligence (AI) and large language model (LLM) race, because many Big Tech constituents have started to make their moves — carefully veering into their own lanes, steering somewhat clear of one another, and even turning toward mostly different directions.

The following is my latest spin through the AI landscape as it has progressed up to and through today. I will use two distinct vehicles to evaluate that status quo, as well as its future trajectory:

1. Microsoft’s Holey Trinity (a three-pronged approach to AI)
2. Competitive positioning at the left hand, right hand, and jazz hands of the AI gods

👆 choose GREEN to annotate this rest of this article or PINK to get a summary 👆

The definition of a Platform

We can analogize the value chain for generative AI and LLMs to the personal computer (PC) revolution from generations ago. To wit, from Ben Thompson (Stratechery):

[T]hinking about what exactly is a platform. It used to be that computers were fully…