5 ms·

The difference between other tech companies and Microsoft is that Microsoft is no longer a growth company. That isn't necessarily bad. IMO, it's reasonable to

by Duff 15y ago

The difference between other tech companies and Microsoft is that Microsoft is no longer a growth company. That isn't necessarily bad. IMO, it's reasonable to have a slow-growth company in a mature market that pays a nice dividend (Microsoft's should be higher though). The danger is that Microsoft's utter dominance is getting chipped at from the margins. Are small companies or individuals buying Office like they once did? Is Apple's growth in the tablet space eventually going to put a bullet in the traditional PC?

hugh3 15y ago
Microsoft is no longer a growth company Ah, but it could be. There are plenty of other markets left to dominate under Microsoft's general heading of "we make software for stuff", especially if they don't mind making hardware too (see Zune, Xbox). If they're worried about the tablet market, why not create their own tablet? Why did they make one attempt at the iPod market and then give up? Why aren't they pushing their Windows Mobile harder? Why aren't they doing more to go toe-to-toe with Apple? They have fifty billion dollars in cash, why not do something with it?
- stcredzero 15y ago
  There are plenty of other markets left to dominate under Microsoft's general heading of "we make software for stuff", especially if they don't mind making hardware too. There are tons of connectivity issues they can solve, or help solve through 3rd parties. This is also what Near Field comms are about.
- lukeschlather 15y ago
  Microsoft does a good job of making an easy to manage server/desktop ecosystem for any sized business (assuming they have at least some IT.) They do it better than anyone. Trying to break into other markets is if anything a mark that the management doesn't recognize their core competencies and is trying to overreach. What they should be working on is next generation CRM tools, directly competing with Oracle, IBM, and the businesses that rely on their overpriced stacks.
- Duff 15y ago
  We could have had the same discussion about IBM in 1986. Think about it. Microsoft is handcuffed by their success, because anything that threatens the holy trinity of OEM Windows Licensing, Office and corporate EAs is not going to be successful. The impact to short-term bottom line is too much... Look at 1986 IBM again as the example. Do you want to be the 1986 IBM salesmen who sells some PC-based application system for $500k to a bank... a bank who may replace the IBM PCs with Compaqs in 1988? Or do you want to be the guy who sells a $10M mainframe/software package with multi-year service agreements?
  - hugh3 15y ago
    Your point about IBM confuses me. Are you saying that Microsoft is going to be like IBM (a slow decline for another decades, followed by a huge boom ten years later)? Or that Microsoft should follow IBM's example by giving up on the consumer market? There's many ways to make a buck -- Apple has chosen one, IBM another, and neither is obviously better than the other.
Splines 15y ago
Is Apple's growth in the tablet space eventually going to put a bullet in the traditional PC? Call me naive, but I have a really hard time seeing the traditional PC going away. Tablets just aren't cheap or versatile enough to replace PCs.
- stcredzero 15y ago
  The desktop and the laptop are really good embodiments of a workstation form factor. The growth of tablets isn't at the expense of the workstation. It's more the realization that there are other niches. There are other work patterns that are better served by other form factors. Think about it. How many work patterns actually amount to writing down information, then going to a workstation and transferring the data? Lots.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- evangineer 15y ago
  Tablets already seem to be hurting home PC sales if recent numbers from the likes of HP is any indication.
- Duff 15y ago
  You're not looking at the big picture. The PC is dead -- it's a commodity now. I work in a big enterprise IT shop with tens of thousands of PCs. We have management software that meters application utilization. 85% of application runtime on PCs is devoted to: Microsoft Word, Outlook and IE. Most of the other 15% are in-house apps, with a long tail of various tools that people use. Yet the per-seat cost of a desktop is over $100/year for basic licensing, $75/year for Office and about $250/year for hardware, assuming a 4-year refresh cycle. For 10,000 people, that's $4.25M of annual cash flow just to provide clients to workers -- no infrastructure costs, no operational staff costs. (Those costs are easily $50-100/seat, depending on the org) That's a ridiculous amount of money. So there's a huge opportunity to offer a solution that improves productivity by hacking away at that cost. Compare the management features of an iPad/iPhone/BlackBerry to ChromeOS -- they are nearly identical. Lower labor costs plus less licensing means enterprise adoption. Technically, the solution just needs to be "good enough".
eager_neither 15y ago
IBM is not really a growth company any more either.
rbanffy 15y ago
> Microsoft is no longer a growth company Because they failed to gain a foothold on any growing market. Or even find them before they exploded. And the few they did (mobile - they took Palm's crown in the early 2000s) they fumbled completely.

by Duff 15y ago

hugh3 15y ago

Microsoft is no longer a growth company Ah, but it could be. There are plenty of other markets left to dominate under Microsoft's general heading of "we make software for stuff", especially if they don't mind making hardware too (see Zune, Xbox). If they're worried about the tablet market, why not create their own tablet? Why did they make one attempt at the iPod market and then give up? Why aren't they pushing their Windows Mobile harder? Why aren't they doing more to go toe-to-toe with Apple? They have fifty billion dollars in cash, why not do something with it?

stcredzero 15y ago
There are plenty of other markets left to dominate under Microsoft's general heading of "we make software for stuff", especially if they don't mind making hardware too. There are tons of connectivity issues they can solve, or help solve through 3rd parties. This is also what Near Field comms are about.
lukeschlather 15y ago
Microsoft does a good job of making an easy to manage server/desktop ecosystem for any sized business (assuming they have at least some IT.) They do it better than anyone. Trying to break into other markets is if anything a mark that the management doesn't recognize their core competencies and is trying to overreach. What they should be working on is next generation CRM tools, directly competing with Oracle, IBM, and the businesses that rely on their overpriced stacks.
Duff 15y ago
We could have had the same discussion about IBM in 1986. Think about it. Microsoft is handcuffed by their success, because anything that threatens the holy trinity of OEM Windows Licensing, Office and corporate EAs is not going to be successful. The impact to short-term bottom line is too much... Look at 1986 IBM again as the example. Do you want to be the 1986 IBM salesmen who sells some PC-based application system for $500k to a bank... a bank who may replace the IBM PCs with Compaqs in 1988? Or do you want to be the guy who sells a $10M mainframe/software package with multi-year service agreements?
- hugh3 15y ago
  Your point about IBM confuses me. Are you saying that Microsoft is going to be like IBM (a slow decline for another decades, followed by a huge boom ten years later)? Or that Microsoft should follow IBM's example by giving up on the consumer market? There's many ways to make a buck -- Apple has chosen one, IBM another, and neither is obviously better than the other.

Splines 15y ago

Is Apple's growth in the tablet space eventually going to put a bullet in the traditional PC? Call me naive, but I have a really hard time seeing the traditional PC going away. Tablets just aren't cheap or versatile enough to replace PCs.

stcredzero 15y ago
The desktop and the laptop are really good embodiments of a workstation form factor. The growth of tablets isn't at the expense of the workstation. It's more the realization that there are other niches. There are other work patterns that are better served by other form factors. Think about it. How many work patterns actually amount to writing down information, then going to a workstation and transferring the data? Lots.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
evangineer 15y ago
Tablets already seem to be hurting home PC sales if recent numbers from the likes of HP is any indication.
Duff 15y ago
You're not looking at the big picture. The PC is dead -- it's a commodity now. I work in a big enterprise IT shop with tens of thousands of PCs. We have management software that meters application utilization. 85% of application runtime on PCs is devoted to: Microsoft Word, Outlook and IE. Most of the other 15% are in-house apps, with a long tail of various tools that people use. Yet the per-seat cost of a desktop is over $100/year for basic licensing, $75/year for Office and about $250/year for hardware, assuming a 4-year refresh cycle. For 10,000 people, that's $4.25M of annual cash flow just to provide clients to workers -- no infrastructure costs, no operational staff costs. (Those costs are easily $50-100/seat, depending on the org) That's a ridiculous amount of money. So there's a huge opportunity to offer a solution that improves productivity by hacking away at that cost. Compare the management features of an iPad/iPhone/BlackBerry to ChromeOS -- they are nearly identical. Lower labor costs plus less licensing means enterprise adoption. Technically, the solution just needs to be "good enough".

eager_neither 15y ago

IBM is not really a growth company any more either.

rbanffy 15y ago

> Microsoft is no longer a growth company Because they failed to gain a foothold on any growing market. Or even find them before they exploded. And the few they did (mobile - they took Palm's crown in the early 2000s) they fumbled completely.