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How Machine Learning Ate Microsoft
snydeq writes Yesterday's announcement of Azure Machine Learning offers the latest sign of Microsoft's deep machine learning expertise — now available to developers everywhere, InfoWorld reports. "Machine learning has infiltrated Microsoft products from Bing to Office to Windows 8 to Xbox games. Its flashiest vehicle may be the futuristic Skype Translator, which handles two-way voice conversations in different languages. Now, with machine learning available on the Azure cloud, developers can build learning capabilities into their own applications: recommendations, sentiment analysis, fraud detection, fault prediction, and more. The idea of the new Azure offering is to democratize machine learning, so you no longer need to hire someone with a doctorate to use a machine learning algorithm."
How the fuck does some idiot ever end up buying their first Windows Server license? I get how once people are trapped, they have to keep doing it, but who were these people, who were braindead enough to ever go to all that extra trouble, labor and expense to lock themselves in, in the first place? It's 1998 and you need a server. Are you really going to even think, "Hey, I wonder if Microsoft has something?" Are you really going to be able to keep from laughing your ass off, if a Microsoft salesperson tries to put the idea into your head?
And then even if it happens, every three months after that, you are under constant pressure to get out of it. You might not ever get out, but you're always going to be looking for ways to make it happen.
HOW IS THIS STILL A THING?!!?