Not to be a troll, but I really think they cannot. The last "good" product they made was SQL-Server/Exchange/Windows2000, and that was a long time ago.
While I can think of a few other, dotnet and Visual Studio, I think that you're generally correct.
Microsoft, Google and others, have created a culture that are no longer able to produce high quality solutions, because they can't focus on a single vision for their products. Or in some cases the vision does not align with creating good products.
SQL Server is a really good example, it's highly focused, it exists outside the current hype bobble, there's no advertising, no subscription, just a database server and it's a really good product. Exchange sucks, because it been pulled in to new subscription based world, and it's going to suffer for it.
Well, it gets better and worse, with a worsening trend. It's not monotonic, so one can easily point "hey, VS XX is better than VS YY for some XX > YY".
Just judging by the deteriorating state of the Windows OS...
I know these are different divisions, but it does say something about the culture. Windows has always been a dumpster fire, but when it was built by nerds and not managers, it felt more, uh, tolerable.
> but when it was built by nerds and not managers, it felt more, uh, tolerable.
The 'WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN' era. Ye. Way more relatable than todays malware riddled joke of an OS. It is too bad since the Windows 7 foundation seems OK.
It was always a dumpster fire for security, but it did have a pretty good UI and functionality at say XP-SP3, but now the UX had been thrown on the fire too.
I remember enjoying using Windows 2000/XP but I feel like that's my nostalgia talking. I was customizing a new installation for days, messing with registry keys and obscure settings dialogs. It was never that user-friendly to begin with. After having used MacOS for the last few years, I do not miss the hassle.
To be fair, not a lot of things were user-friendly back then, and Windows was the standard consumer OS for a good reason. It was solidly OKAY.
Using the latest versions of Windows, however, is just infuriating even without any complicated setup.
I grew up with an Apple II, then switched to Windows from 3.11 for Workgroups all the way up to Vista, at which point I switched to desktop Linux (variety of distros, but mostly ended up on Kubuntu in my house and Mint for family). Then it was 8 years of ChromeOS. The past couple of years I've been on MacBooks and, although there are quirks I don't really like, I can't argue with the fact that it mostly "just works", which is really the primary requirement of any operating system.
Still, I would say peak Win2k was faster, cleaner and more no nonsense than modern MacOS. I use macs as well, they are not at all as snappy as windows 2000 was.
I actually REALLY LIKE MacOS, especially workspace/window management when using Rectangles. So much so that I'm trying to recreate it on Linux (I don't want to buy a new Mac when I have a perfectly good gaming desktop to repurpose for dev work).
Not to be a troll, but I really think they cannot. The last "good" product they made was SQL-Server/Exchange/Windows2000, and that was a long time ago.