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Fair enough, but Microsoft would be equally dead without Office and Azure revenue. One way to think about this is that Apple isn't diversified enough. Another

Fair enough, but Microsoft would be equally dead without Office and Azure revenue. One way to think about this is that Apple isn't diversified enough. Another way to think about it is that Microsoft's long tail is a mess.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Microsoft would be equally dead without Office and Azure revenue. Would they? Microsoft also own other stuff they monetize like GitHub, Linkedin, X-Box, and a shit tonne of gaming IP inclusing Activision Blizzard, plus other things I'm surely forgetting. Looks pretty diverse to me comapred to a company who's revenue stream is limited by the ammounts of walled garden phones it can sell and who's grasp over its walled garden can be regualted away by the EU waving their wand the same way they lost the Lightnig cable revenue stream. Can Apple keep up this momentum in the long run and keep growing by getting people to buy more expensive stuff, or will they slowly loose steam and stagnate?
kaashif 3y ago
> Fair enough, but Microsoft would be equally dead without Office and Azure revenue. Office and Azure make up half of their revenue, but their other revenue streams are actually different things, like Windows, gaming, LinkedIn, Bing advertising. It's actual diversification.
- nineteen999 3y ago
  People forget that Apple of today probably wouldn't be around if Microsoft hadn't given them $150M to save them from bankruptcy in 1997[1]. With the introduction of IE in 1995 and its deep integration into Win95 and ruthless take-no-prisoners assault on Netscape, Microsoft was probably already aware that they were starting to resemble a monopoly, given Apple's poor sales and market share at the time. My personal take is that MS propped up Apple to help appear to have a competitor ahead of the Antitrust action in 2001[2]. [1]https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-wh... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
  - cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
    I really don’t think that people “forget” that. You’re effectively saying “if Microsoft continued to be predatory and anticompetitive to the degree they were, there wouldn’t be [other option]”. What’s the point? Seems self-evident.
  - another2another 3y ago
    >probably wouldn't be around if Microsoft hadn't given them $150M to save them from bankruptcy in 1997 I'm _pretty_ sure Apple could have gotten the money from elsewhere if they really had to. It's history now, so we'll never know for sure, but I'd bet that they could have found other investors if they really had to. People seem to think it's a black and white scenario - money from MS or death! But I don't think it ever was.
    - nineteen999 3y ago
      The 70's through 90's were littered with the corpses of computer companies that were outcompeted and never recovered - the IBM PC/DOS/Windows 3.x effectively killed not only the competing CP/M (8080/Z80) market for PC's, but outcompeted the Amiga, Atari ST, and of course the entire 8-bit market was obsoleted by the 16-bit 80[2]86. Apple's struggle to enhance MacOS to keep up (vs Win95/NT juggernaut) at that time are well documented. At least Apple still had some brand recognition, so maybe you are right.
another2another 3y ago
>Fair enough, but Microsoft would be equally dead without Office and Azure revenue. They were already on a bit of a shaky nail for a while when they relied only on Office and Windows, but their shift to the cloud (and resultant cuddly Embrace of Linux) has paid off well for them, so overall a smart move on their part.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>Microsoft would be equally dead without Office and Azure revenue. Would they? Microsoft also own other stuff they monetize like GitHub, Linkedin, X-Box, and a shit tonne of gaming IP inclusing Activision Blizzard, plus other things I'm surely forgetting. Looks pretty diverse to me comapred to a company who's revenue stream is limited by the ammounts of walled garden phones it can sell and who's grasp over its walled garden can be regualted away by the EU waving their wand the same way they lost the Lightnig cable revenue stream. Can Apple keep up this momentum in the long run and keep growing by getting people to buy more expensive stuff, or will they slowly loose steam and stagnate?

kaashif 3y ago

> Fair enough, but Microsoft would be equally dead without Office and Azure revenue. Office and Azure make up half of their revenue, but their other revenue streams are actually different things, like Windows, gaming, LinkedIn, Bing advertising. It's actual diversification.

nineteen999 3y ago
People forget that Apple of today probably wouldn't be around if Microsoft hadn't given them $150M to save them from bankruptcy in 1997[1]. With the introduction of IE in 1995 and its deep integration into Win95 and ruthless take-no-prisoners assault on Netscape, Microsoft was probably already aware that they were starting to resemble a monopoly, given Apple's poor sales and market share at the time. My personal take is that MS propped up Apple to help appear to have a competitor ahead of the Antitrust action in 2001[2]. [1]https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-wh... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
  I really don’t think that people “forget” that. You’re effectively saying “if Microsoft continued to be predatory and anticompetitive to the degree they were, there wouldn’t be [other option]”. What’s the point? Seems self-evident.
- another2another 3y ago
  >probably wouldn't be around if Microsoft hadn't given them $150M to save them from bankruptcy in 1997 I'm _pretty_ sure Apple could have gotten the money from elsewhere if they really had to. It's history now, so we'll never know for sure, but I'd bet that they could have found other investors if they really had to. People seem to think it's a black and white scenario - money from MS or death! But I don't think it ever was.
  - nineteen999 3y ago
    The 70's through 90's were littered with the corpses of computer companies that were outcompeted and never recovered - the IBM PC/DOS/Windows 3.x effectively killed not only the competing CP/M (8080/Z80) market for PC's, but outcompeted the Amiga, Atari ST, and of course the entire 8-bit market was obsoleted by the 16-bit 80[2]86. Apple's struggle to enhance MacOS to keep up (vs Win95/NT juggernaut) at that time are well documented. At least Apple still had some brand recognition, so maybe you are right.

another2another 3y ago

>Fair enough, but Microsoft would be equally dead without Office and Azure revenue. They were already on a bit of a shaky nail for a while when they relied only on Office and Windows, but their shift to the cloud (and resultant cuddly Embrace of Linux) has paid off well for them, so overall a smart move on their part.