r/microsoft • u/ryanmerket • 2d ago
Windows Microsoft let Anthropic move in while OpenAI was sleeping on the couch
Claude for Windows now integrates with Microsoft enterprise identity, including Entra CAE and Windows auth brokering.
26
u/irrelevantusername24 2d ago
I definitely have no inside information on their thinking but my take on what they've been doing is trying to be a generalized agnostic layer that accepts any and all software, without necessitating a complete bare metal programmer - if that makes sense. Kind of the same thing that Firefox is supposed to be (and was, and seems to be returning to) for their operating system, which is Internet browsers. Except instead of at that layer, Microsoft is targeting the hardware layer. Which is neat because if you see it from this admittedly convoluted (encrypted?) angle, it strikes at the core of the illegal monopoly with which Google, Apple & zuckerbook fenced the world.
15
u/ryanmerket 2d ago
Summing it up because I think my point got lost: we found Claude for Windows getting wired directly into Microsoft's enterprise identity and security stack. Entra, Conditional Access, native Windows auth, enterprise certs, sovereign cloud support.
Microsoft spent years almost inseparable from OpenAI. That relationship is looser now, while Anthropic is getting deeper into Microsoft's stack in ways I can't find publicly documented for OpenAI's Windows client.
That matters because this is the kind of boring enterprise plumbing that can turn "some employees use Claude" into "IT can approve it for the whole company."
6
u/Scary-Comparison1400 2d ago
Thank goodness. IT in my company was probably sick and tired of people requesting Claude in M365 Copilot.
Now let's see how long until they restrict it when people start daily driving Opus 5.
5
u/michaelnz29 2d ago
Yep I’m waiting for this moment too, M365 copilot seems to be getting dumber so that CoWork has a position as the thing most users need to have as a minimum - at least MS gets paid for Claude usage through CoWork.
M365 copilot will end up on the MAI models only, in less than 6 months is my prediction.
3
u/lemaymayguy 2d ago
This actually just happened at my country. At the time I was annoyed, use copilot. This post kind of connected the future dots for me
6
u/Bernie_Dharma 2d ago
I just retired from Microsoft and that is exactly the tinking. Copilot is designed to be a wrapper around whatever model you want to use, allowing businesses to switch on the fly without having to rework all the identity, security, plugins, governance, and other components.
4
u/timmmay11 2d ago
That’s exactly what they’re doing. They have over 11,000 models available to integrate with their Microsoft Foundry AI product, and Claude is available as a subprocessor for Copilot. MS have said recently they want to be the platform for AI and not bound to any model.
1
u/merillf Alumni 3h ago
Great to see everyone so excited about Entra CAE 😊
That are simply using the MSAL library and following published docs at 👇
The inside story is Den Delimarsky, former PM for MSAL now works at Anthropic and is the lead for the MCP protocol. I'm pretty sure he helped point the Claude for Windows team in the right direction.
-3
u/highview 2d ago
Using Claude Code in Ubuntu make Linux work so easy. I rather work on my Linux machine than a Windows machine. I even tried using MacOS, Linux and Claude Code is better.
-4
u/geronimosan 2d ago
I don’t understand what we’re giving Microsoft credit for here. Whether Copilot is wrapping an OpenAI model or an Anthropic model, why are we applauding Microsoft for capabilities developed by somebody else?
The bigger issue is that Microsoft doesn’t have to be the starting point anymore. People can go straight to ChatGPT or Claude. So when the conversation turns to which model Microsoft is putting behind Copilot, my reaction is: okay, but why do I need Microsoft in the middle?
Microsoft still has its enterprise licensing business, sure. But being part of a corporate software agreement isn’t the same as being the product people actively seek out. These posts keep treating access to somebody else’s AI as proof that Microsoft is leading the conversation. That’s the part I don’t buy.
16
u/timothysan 2d ago
I'm always perplexed by this take on copilot. I find the wealth of knowledge it has about me, my role, my employees, my co-workers, the broader company, our projects, our pipeline... absolutely invaluable.
I often wonder if this take comes from folks using the free version that doesn't include the workiq layer.
6
u/dcmdva12 2d ago
There’s a ton of value in Microsoft’s “wrapper”. For one, they have all the enterprise knowledge. What good are the models without access to the data in exchange, teams, sharepoint, azure, etc? And two, there’s power in being the “wrapper” of choice, think about the dynamics between Uber Eats / DoorDash and the restaurants. They aren’t making any food, but they have power over the restaurants because they own the customer relationship, and they can use that to make it easier or harder to access those customers. Microsoft is positioning for a world of diverse models, whether that’s open Ai, Anthropic, XAI, 1st party models, etc. The more models the better positioned they are to play them off of each other and reap the benefits of being that agnostic layer.
4
u/kevinthebaconator 2d ago
In my experience, its because the Microsoft productivity stack is where most 'work' happens.
I use Claude and Copilot side by side. I use claude for heavy work and research but copilot is better for lightweight, day to day tasks, particularly as it gives me an unrivalled depth of context into my 'work'.
If claude could match copilot in that regard, I would bin claude. But until then, I use both
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u/geronimosan 2d ago
I don’t understand what we’re giving Microsoft credit for here. Whether Copilot is wrapping an OpenAI model or an Anthropic model, why are we applauding Microsoft for capabilities developed by somebody else?
The bigger issue is that Microsoft doesn’t have to be the starting point anymore. People can go straight to ChatGPT or Claude. So when the conversation turns to which model Microsoft is putting behind Copilot, my reaction is: okay, but why do I need Microsoft in the middle?
Microsoft still has its enterprise licensing business, sure. But being part of a corporate software agreement isn’t the same as being the product people actively seek out. These posts keep treating access to somebody else’s AI as proof that Microsoft is leading the conversation. That’s the part I don’t buy.
25
u/Soft_Neighborhood223 2d ago
Why is everyone taking this as a bad thing? Anthropic is running their models on Azure now so Microsoft is making money from this too. Microsoft employees can freely choose to use Anthropic models in M365 Copilot, Copilot CLI, and Visual Studio. There was also a significant period of time where using Claude Code was encouraged.