4 ms·
The graph starts around the height of the internet bubble. It's a dishonest comparison. You can't blame Ballmer for not driving the stock back up to unrealistic
by wonnage 15y ago
The graph starts around the height of the internet bubble. It's a dishonest comparison. You can't blame Ballmer for not driving the stock back up to unrealistic levels.
Meanwhile, Google is basically starting from zero - of course it's going to show faster growth than the lumbering behemoth that is MS. Keep in mind that few people outside of the bank underwriting the IPO and Google employees actually got the awesome starting price.
So yes, he should compare them, but no, he's doing it wrong.
- alexqgb 15y agoThere's a big difference between "driving the stock back up to unrealistic levels" and totally flatlining - which is what MS has actually done. Yes, the former is ridiculous. But so is the latter.
- wonnage 15y agoIf you factor in dividends the return would be something around 20% over the past 7 years. Crappy, but definitely not "flatlining". Microsoft makes twice as much as Oracle, pays a dividend, and yet has half the P/E multiplier. It's just not a sexy stock right now, but you can't deny the underlying profitability. Personally I think it's just that they've made some really embarrassing mistakes (Bing?). None of the failures have really dented the bottom line...they still had 8.5B lying around to buy Skype.
- alexqgb 15y agoGood point about the dividends. I didn't consider that. And you're right about spare cash and the bottom line. From what I understand, the twin cash cows provided by Windows and Office hide a LOT of sins. In that sense, Microsoft is like some hopelessly corrupt petrostate. Sure, the place is a shambles in every way imaginable, but as long as the oil keeps flowing, nothing matters enough to dislodge the ruling class.