4 ms·

so a little more than one fifth of Microsoft

blowski 5y ago
Which is really impressive when you think Microsoft is probably made up of 100s of companies, and has itself been around for more than 40 years. I guess it's one of those numbers that - if you zoom out over the last 150 years - shows how much tech has taken over the world.
- mxschumacher 5y ago
  I'm a hesitant about using "tech" and "software" as equivalents. Pharma, Oil & Gas and the car industry are all high - tech for example. What is unique about Microsoft and other large "tech" firms is that they are natural oligopolies that have very low distribution cost and become more valuable as they get bigger. They benefit from massive network and platform effects (the world is running on Excel, all companies are moving towards the cloud, there are only two mobile operating systems, Metcalfe's law drives social media company valuations). These companies are very valuable, because they are very profitable. They are very profitable because they're hard to compete with. Google couldn't make a dent in social media, Microsoft failed in search and mobile, Amazon couldn't get into mobile etc) In cars, almost nobody really makes money over the long term, all profits are competed away. But the car industry is gigantic, GM's revenue is only a little bit smaller than than of Microsoft. It's a high capex, low profit industry and many incredibly strong players exist. Great for consumers, bad for capitalists.
  - sumedh 5y ago
    > Google couldn't make a dent in social media Google had a pretty popular network in some countries called Orkut. Google Talk was fairly popular as well. Google could have just focused on making them better instead of creating new products like Google +, Buzz, Wave, and multiple chat apps.
    - vishnugupta 5y ago
      Orkut was reasonably popular in my part of the world until (not necessarily because of) Google bought it.
      - blowski 5y ago
        It was really popular in Brazil until 2008-ish.
      - ab_testing 5y ago
        It was not bought by Google. It was developed by a Google employee while at Google as part of the 20% time on a side project.
        vishnugupta 5y ago
        Wow, I had no idea. TIL. Now when I think about it I can't recall the source of my "knowledge"; I somehow ended up believing that Google bought Orkut.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    "tech" is colloquial bay area language that escaped into the global world. It's a bad word because it isn't meant to have a huge audience.
  - tata71 5y ago
    > Pharma, Oil & Gas and the car industry are all high - tech for example. These industries run on SaaS'
    - blowski 5y ago
      Exactly - their revenues don't include a huge amount of license fees paid for code they've written.

Which is really impressive when you think Microsoft is probably made up of 100s of companies, and has itself been around for more than 40 years. I guess it's one of those numbers that - if you zoom out over the last 150 years - shows how much tech has taken over the world.

mxschumacher 5y ago
I'm a hesitant about using "tech" and "software" as equivalents. Pharma, Oil & Gas and the car industry are all high - tech for example. What is unique about Microsoft and other large "tech" firms is that they are natural oligopolies that have very low distribution cost and become more valuable as they get bigger. They benefit from massive network and platform effects (the world is running on Excel, all companies are moving towards the cloud, there are only two mobile operating systems, Metcalfe's law drives social media company valuations). These companies are very valuable, because they are very profitable. They are very profitable because they're hard to compete with. Google couldn't make a dent in social media, Microsoft failed in search and mobile, Amazon couldn't get into mobile etc) In cars, almost nobody really makes money over the long term, all profits are competed away. But the car industry is gigantic, GM's revenue is only a little bit smaller than than of Microsoft. It's a high capex, low profit industry and many incredibly strong players exist. Great for consumers, bad for capitalists.
- sumedh 5y ago
  > Google couldn't make a dent in social media Google had a pretty popular network in some countries called Orkut. Google Talk was fairly popular as well. Google could have just focused on making them better instead of creating new products like Google +, Buzz, Wave, and multiple chat apps.
  - vishnugupta 5y ago
    Orkut was reasonably popular in my part of the world until (not necessarily because of) Google bought it.
    - blowski 5y ago
      It was really popular in Brazil until 2008-ish.
    - ab_testing 5y ago
      It was not bought by Google. It was developed by a Google employee while at Google as part of the 20% time on a side project.
      - vishnugupta 5y ago
        Wow, I had no idea. TIL. Now when I think about it I can't recall the source of my "knowledge"; I somehow ended up believing that Google bought Orkut.
- imtringued 5y ago
  "tech" is colloquial bay area language that escaped into the global world. It's a bad word because it isn't meant to have a huge audience.
- tata71 5y ago
  > Pharma, Oil & Gas and the car industry are all high - tech for example. These industries run on SaaS'
  - blowski 5y ago
    Exactly - their revenues don't include a huge amount of license fees paid for code they've written.