5 ms·

Oh jeez, not again. This is the Microsoft we know and love to hate, less so now that it is falling apart and must be pitied as an underdog. Let's see: Market

Oh jeez, not again. This is the Microsoft we know and love to hate, less so now that it is falling apart and must be pitied as an underdog. Let's see: Market cap: Microsoft - 239.49B, Google - 195.50B. Revenue: Microsoft - 66.69B, Google - 29.32B. Profit margin: Microsoft - 30.84%, Google - 29.01%. Falling apart. Right...

andrenotgiant 16y ago
All it took to piece together the author's ignorance was the "Daniel Eran Dilger is the author of “Snow Leopard Server (Developer Reference),” quote down at the end. I'm sure his line of thought was: "All my friends at Starbucks have MacBook Pros, so Microsoft must be doing really badly." Probably the same reason half his argument seemed to involve Android jealousy...
- j79 16y ago
  Goodness, your comment seems to imply you have an issue with Apple products, their policies, and/or Steve Jobs. Yeah, the guy writes about OS X and Apple, but he's been a tech consultant for nearly two decades. He's worked with various technologies, from various companies. A quick Google search (heh) would have revealed this. Or, what? Did you believe he was some 20-something year old blogger regurgitating the same "FUD" you believe all Apple fanboys are spewing regarding their "Android jealousy"?
megablast 16y ago
Microsoft is still a behemoth, with its fingers in a lot of pies, but unlike Apple and Google, it has not manage to grab onto the future, yet. The future if going mobile, and services. Microsoft has so far lost the mobile race, and the big services do not use MS servers. They are looking in the worst shape to face the future than they have ever, in the last 20 years.
- greyman 16y ago
  I partially agree, but with some caveats: 1. Future is also in the games, and here Microsoft has a very competitive product (xbox/kinect) 2. mobile race is not over yet, and WP7 is conceptually a good product, combining polished UI (aka iOS) with at least some hardware variety (aka Android). It just came late to the game, but it is not yet clear if too late. I personally think they can catch up with throwing enough money into it. 3. We will see when they release OS for tablets. They are late here as well, but similar to point 2), maybe not too late.
  - cpr 16y ago
    2. & 3.) It's very, very late to come to these races with nothing truly compelling to show. I think they've already lost, but, nothing's sure...
    - marcuskaz 16y ago
      It's never too late, the game changes too much. Just 5 years ago Palm and Blackberry owned the entire smart phone market. I wouldn't want to be in MS position, but with enough money, patience and perseverance you never know what they might do and what may be next
    - recoiledsnake 16y ago
      Expect a big push for WP7 once it available on Verizon/Sprint. Microsoft in underdog mode is a very different and dangerous beast. See Windows,Xbox, Word, Excel, NT, Exchange, .NET, IE. The first few versions were laughed at and dismissed but later ones mostly blew away the competition(yes, IE was better than Netscape in the 4.0 and 5.0 days while Netscape took forever to release their 6.0). Apple likes to retreat into it's niche where it controls everything (helps avoid antitrust regulators breathing down its neck) and has high margins. This is already happening with the iPhone. Android while gaining in popularity, lacks the polish in the UI and performance. Even with much better raw hardware, Android performs worse compared to Windows Phone 7. See http://pockethacks.com/windows-phone-7-smoother-than-dual-core-tegra2-android-device/ http://pockethacks.com/windows-phone-7-smoother-than-dual-co... The going empirical formula is version 3 of their products are when they start becoming good. While WP7 is technically version 7, it's actually a complete reboot of the platform with zero backward compatibility. They're taking the middle route between iPhone and Android, having variety in hardware but strict hardware requirements to prevent fragmentation and a controlled app ecosystem. That said, they don't have a good tablet strategy. Maybe Windows 8 will really be tablet optimized, or maybe tablet hardware will catch up to make it run smoothly(the Win UI is still a hard problem on tablets though). Or maybe they will port the Windows Phone UI to tablets. In short, very interesting times are ahead in the mobile/tablet space and it would be a mistake to write Microsoft off.
dexen 16y ago
Are you kidding yourself consciously or just 8 years behind the news? @_@ http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=goog%20msft http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=goog%20msft Note how MSFT is swinging around 0% growth, while GOOG is steadily between +20% and +60% growth, in regard to share prices. The market has spoken some time ago, and the trend doesn't look like changing anytime near soon.
- davidu 16y ago
  You fail to understand how to interpret a "relative growth" chart. Google is not "steadily between +20% and +60% growth." Since a random point in time picked by WA it shows what you would be up on another random point in time. If you look at the historical returns of MSFT vs GOOG there is no competition. You're original $10,000 in MSFT would be worth many millions and your GOOG stock would be worth less than $100,000.
  - dexen 16y ago
    That's a valid point, but it bears no relation to matter of the current trend -- which is what OP argued about, right? And the seems to be: GOOG price is growing, MSFT price is flat for some years. So what it skyrocketed years ago, when somebody else held the helm and the market was not saturated with countless `me-too' products? BTW., switch to the 5 year range in WA and you still see the trend.

andrenotgiant 16y ago

All it took to piece together the author's ignorance was the "Daniel Eran Dilger is the author of “Snow Leopard Server (Developer Reference),” quote down at the end. I'm sure his line of thought was: "All my friends at Starbucks have MacBook Pros, so Microsoft must be doing really badly." Probably the same reason half his argument seemed to involve Android jealousy...

j79 16y ago
Goodness, your comment seems to imply you have an issue with Apple products, their policies, and/or Steve Jobs. Yeah, the guy writes about OS X and Apple, but he's been a tech consultant for nearly two decades. He's worked with various technologies, from various companies. A quick Google search (heh) would have revealed this. Or, what? Did you believe he was some 20-something year old blogger regurgitating the same "FUD" you believe all Apple fanboys are spewing regarding their "Android jealousy"?

megablast 16y ago

Microsoft is still a behemoth, with its fingers in a lot of pies, but unlike Apple and Google, it has not manage to grab onto the future, yet. The future if going mobile, and services. Microsoft has so far lost the mobile race, and the big services do not use MS servers. They are looking in the worst shape to face the future than they have ever, in the last 20 years.

greyman 16y ago
I partially agree, but with some caveats: 1. Future is also in the games, and here Microsoft has a very competitive product (xbox/kinect) 2. mobile race is not over yet, and WP7 is conceptually a good product, combining polished UI (aka iOS) with at least some hardware variety (aka Android). It just came late to the game, but it is not yet clear if too late. I personally think they can catch up with throwing enough money into it. 3. We will see when they release OS for tablets. They are late here as well, but similar to point 2), maybe not too late.
- cpr 16y ago
  2. & 3.) It's very, very late to come to these races with nothing truly compelling to show. I think they've already lost, but, nothing's sure...
  - marcuskaz 16y ago
    It's never too late, the game changes too much. Just 5 years ago Palm and Blackberry owned the entire smart phone market. I wouldn't want to be in MS position, but with enough money, patience and perseverance you never know what they might do and what may be next
  - recoiledsnake 16y ago
    Expect a big push for WP7 once it available on Verizon/Sprint. Microsoft in underdog mode is a very different and dangerous beast. See Windows,Xbox, Word, Excel, NT, Exchange, .NET, IE. The first few versions were laughed at and dismissed but later ones mostly blew away the competition(yes, IE was better than Netscape in the 4.0 and 5.0 days while Netscape took forever to release their 6.0). Apple likes to retreat into it's niche where it controls everything (helps avoid antitrust regulators breathing down its neck) and has high margins. This is already happening with the iPhone. Android while gaining in popularity, lacks the polish in the UI and performance. Even with much better raw hardware, Android performs worse compared to Windows Phone 7. See http://pockethacks.com/windows-phone-7-smoother-than-dual-core-tegra2-android-device/ http://pockethacks.com/windows-phone-7-smoother-than-dual-co... The going empirical formula is version 3 of their products are when they start becoming good. While WP7 is technically version 7, it's actually a complete reboot of the platform with zero backward compatibility. They're taking the middle route between iPhone and Android, having variety in hardware but strict hardware requirements to prevent fragmentation and a controlled app ecosystem. That said, they don't have a good tablet strategy. Maybe Windows 8 will really be tablet optimized, or maybe tablet hardware will catch up to make it run smoothly(the Win UI is still a hard problem on tablets though). Or maybe they will port the Windows Phone UI to tablets. In short, very interesting times are ahead in the mobile/tablet space and it would be a mistake to write Microsoft off.

dexen 16y ago

Are you kidding yourself consciously or just 8 years behind the news? @_@ http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=goog%20msft http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=goog%20msft Note how MSFT is swinging around 0% growth, while GOOG is steadily between +20% and +60% growth, in regard to share prices. The market has spoken some time ago, and the trend doesn't look like changing anytime near soon.

davidu 16y ago
You fail to understand how to interpret a "relative growth" chart. Google is not "steadily between +20% and +60% growth." Since a random point in time picked by WA it shows what you would be up on another random point in time. If you look at the historical returns of MSFT vs GOOG there is no competition. You're original $10,000 in MSFT would be worth many millions and your GOOG stock would be worth less than $100,000.
- dexen 16y ago
  That's a valid point, but it bears no relation to matter of the current trend -- which is what OP argued about, right? And the seems to be: GOOG price is growing, MSFT price is flat for some years. So what it skyrocketed years ago, when somebody else held the helm and the market was not saturated with countless `me-too' products? BTW., switch to the 5 year range in WA and you still see the trend.