11 ms·
Yes, how is it that a company that's been around as long that's a market leader or second place in a large number of market segments can be so valuable? Truly,
by cwyers 8y ago
Yes, how is it that a company that's been around as long that's a market leader or second place in a large number of market segments can be so valuable? Truly, it's mysterious.
- JacobJans 8y agoTheir stock price has tripled since 2014. I would say that's a topic worth exploring.
- egocodedinsol 8y agoThank you. “Obvious” can be a dangerous concept, especially when paired with sarcasm.
- hbosch 8y agoThis surely correlates to the rise of Azure?
- damon_c 8y agoActually it correlates to the exit of Steve Ballmer. I bought shares that day ;)
- Delmania 8y agoGo look at the company's performance under Ballmer. You may not like him, but the man knew how to make money.
- snovv_crash 8y agoLike a lot of business people, he did a great job of converting reputation into cold hard cash. The issue is that at some point bad reputation comes back to bite, Nadella has basically had to reinvent the company to get it back to a fraction of its former glory. Nobody lines up at night waiting to buy the latest version of Windows or Office anymore.
- Delmania 8y agoWhy would they line up for them, though? The only time I can remember that was for Windows XP. Most companies use O365, which keeps the office desktop clients up to date, and when people buy a laptop it has Windows 10 on it.
- mr_toad 8y agoThe hype around the release of Windows 95 was really something. It was broadcast TV news segment worthy, back when the 6pm news was the news. Even new iPhone models get less hype than that. It’s hard to see Microsoft returning to those days. Windows is now just a platform for them to push enterprise software.
- noitsnot 8y agoMicrosoft cites expensive cloud integration in their quarterly reports as the reason for increasing profits. Almost $7 billion in revenue last quarter.
- JacobJans 8y agoThough, amazingly, their P/E has also tripled since then, so they're not exactly earning more money. Granted, it was low in 2014.
- cma 8y agoIt also has been paying dividends since Gates left.
- fartcannon 8y agoIs it not the case that Bill Gates is still at very much involved with Microsoft?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 8y agoHe's a board member, significant stockholder, and technology adviser, but no longer any kind of executive officer, AFAIK.
- ido 8y agoThe real funny thing is that at first I wasn't sure if they were surprised MS is so valuable or Apple is so valuable. someone who remembers MS being the most valuable company in the world & Apple being on the brink of bankruptcy
- taneq 8y agoThe wheel turns.
- blakesterz 8y agoRemember that final scene in Pirates of Silicon Valley where it looks like MSFT is going to just destroy Apple? (hopefully remembering correctly) Bill Gates is laughing and Steven Jobs is looking sad and worried. At the time it seemed possible if not inevitable that MSFT would acquire Apple.
- kemiller2002 8y agoIf I remember correctly around '98 MS did invest a significant amount of money in Apple (purchasing non voting stock). I think they offered to rewrite the Mac version of office too.
- godelmachine 8y agoThat’s when Steve Jobs went falling at Bill Gates knees asking for some money, and Mr Gates curtly replied - “Steve, get a market first!”
- Sebguer 8y agoYep! https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/20/what-ever-became-of-microsofts-150-million-investment-in-apple/ https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/20/what-ever-became-of-micr... To keep them solvent and avoid monopoly concerns. Remember when companies had to worry about that?
- late2part 8y ago
- turc1656 8y agoI know, right? I was always wondering how it could be that a company which has virtually every single large corporation licencing its OS and Office products on a recurring basis, not to mention an increasing number of cloud services/storage, web servers, programming tools, and database tools could have eclipsed a company which has one main product that requires constant innovation to keep people buying.
- dotancohen 8y agoAnd government. Worldwide desktop government use of MS's operating system and office suite is above four nines. The Linux and Apple fanboys can tell you all the governments using their favorite OS as a desktop. (says the level-headed Linux fanboy)
- martin_bech 8y agoThe latter company has 3x the earnings of the former..0
- pdpi 8y agoWe can be a bit more generous than that. For the last few years, the companies at the top of the heap have all been consumer-oriented companies, and it's easy to forget that this doesn't necessarily have to always be the case. Microsoft itself is a household name for its consumer software products, so it's easy to think that their rise to the top would _have_ to be tied to consumer products too. From that perspective, these news are a bit of a head scratcher. The Surface line has been successful but not _that_ successful. Windows is as unexciting as always. The XBox isn't really a big thing outside the US. The NY Times isn't a business-centric publication, so it's pretty much a given that their audience would leave the analysis at this point. The things that make Microsoft enormous are all hidden from their view.
- stjohnswarts 8y agoActually the article is on point because IBM was king of the hill at one point, but isn't really all that competitive or innovative any more. MS has shown it has an ability to change direction.
- pjmlp 8y agoTell that to Red-Hat, the containers and managed OS layers people still copying IBM designs, the stuff going into their Java JIT/AOT compilers, or just the amount of patents they keep asserting each year. They just aren't SV cool.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoIBM was acquired by a consulting firm (effectively, the other way around technically) and began to optimize for short term gain over long term gain. IBM still has developed a lot of technology (they can coast on old patents), but their ability to develop new technology is quickly eroding as they realize they can’t insource everything to India.
- pjmlp 8y agoMany "innovative" companies achieve their goals only thanks to those outsourcing companies that do the actual work.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoExamples? IBM is an extreme version of this, and once you’ve outsourced all your R&D, are you really still a tech company?
- martin_bech 8y agoThey have about a third the earnings of Apple, and much much much less cash.. so yeah, its a little odd..
- mohamedattahri 8y agoThere's more to it than just earnings and cash (other assets, liabilities, profitability, etc.). The thing is wall street is a reflection of the way investors see the future rather than the current value of the business.
- cronix 8y agoAnd Apple telling investors it will no longer release individual product sales, like the iphone, was a huge red flag to wall street that there are problems brewing and things are cooling off.
- martin_bech 8y agoBut in terms of net stock equity, Apple is still about 3x MSFT, so I really honestly dont know what you are refering to, when list other assets etc. as Apple is 3x net. In my humble opinion, apple stock is way cheaper than any other tech stock atm, when you look at the financials. (I own AAPL and will be buying more)
- h1d 8y agoIt's easy to understand the OP's feeling when you think about Apple creating what consumers have loved and MS has been dragging people around with their license and vendor lockins and slowing down innovations because they cannot innovate themselves due to all the backward compatibility issues that never ends. Only recently MS has been trying to give back to users with the new CEO. But still no wonder how it rakes in so much when somehow people can't just give up on using Windows.
- belltaco 8y agoThe iPhone ecosystem has the most lock-in by far and even has hardware and app store lock-in. People are forced to give up 30%. iPhone 4 was the last truly innovative phone, the changes after that have been either iterative or waiting for Samsung to take the risk on phablets and then making phones bigger. Apart from things like touch-id.
- johnwyles 8y agoI can hear your snarkiness through this comment because we are all in the same industry. However, the average NYT reader probably hadn't seen or heard from Microsoft in a while to know that Azure is a big deal which is who this article was written for. Timely because of the stock price between them and Apple who we read not long ago were on course to be the first trillion dollar company.
- plokiju 8y agoFor the record, Apple did hit the trillion dollar mark, but has since fallen
- cronix 8y agoThat was just the market being overexcited, overvaluing it and artificially pushing it forward in order to make it that "first co. to hit $1T history." It didn't actually deserve/earn it, and immediately has slipped back to where it should have been in the first place (lost $150B in just 2 short months).
- plokiju 8y agoThis wasn't some anomaly, AAPL stayed above $1T for an entire quarter, at times being above $1.1T and then only slid down recently when the tech market as a whole did. Trying to pretend Apple was never legitimately worth over $1T is ridiculous
- bearcobra 8y agoComparing Windows, Office & Xbox vs iPhone, Mac and AppleTV, I wonder if NYT readers spend more time interacting with Microsoft products or Apple.
- shmerl 8y agoMarket capture and unchecked monopoly. MS wouldn't be so valuable without nearly monopolized markets.