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Honest Q, why compare MS to IBM? MS has (mostly) products and licensing, and as far as I understand, IBM has consulting and licenses. Pretty different in this

Honest Q, why compare MS to IBM? MS has (mostly) products and licensing, and as far as I understand, IBM has consulting and licenses. Pretty different in this day/age.

fsckboy 2y ago
Honest A, an investor and/or the financial market does not care what the similarities or differences are between companies, but how investments in those companies do. Microsoft and IBM were major players in the personal computer business, and subsequently both have had a heavy presence in enterprises and data centers. IBM is gone from personal computers, although Microsoft's products probably figure heavily in IBM's consulting. could easily compare IBM with other companies; google didn't have a presence prior to 2000, Apple pre 2000 and post iphone are entirely different businesses, nothing else came to my mind. Amazon? they were around in early days of the dot com (1994!) but I'm not really that familiar with where they stood back around 2000 and didn't want to sample apples and oranges. IBM's other competitors like Digital disappeared, but not because IBM gobbled up their share. IBM compared to itself has not grown. Other companies have grown, through survivorship bias if no other reason.
atmavatar 2y ago
At the beginning of the comparison period, IBM was also pretty heavy into products. For example, in the late 80s and even into the early 90s, the market for PCs was broken up into IBM PCs and compatibles. IBM was the PC. IBM invented many of the technologies that went into the early PCs but pissed away their lead with every single one until we find ourselves today where they no longer manufacture anything that can be found in a modern PC as far as I can tell.
shiroiushi 2y ago
IBM has products too: the Rational tools. Anyone who's used them knows they're amazing pieces of software engineering. /s

Honest Q, why compare MS to IBM? MS has (mostly) products and licensing, and as far as I understand, IBM has consulting and licenses. Pretty different in this day/age.

fsckboy 2y ago

Honest A, an investor and/or the financial market does not care what the similarities or differences are between companies, but how investments in those companies do. Microsoft and IBM were major players in the personal computer business, and subsequently both have had a heavy presence in enterprises and data centers. IBM is gone from personal computers, although Microsoft's products probably figure heavily in IBM's consulting. could easily compare IBM with other companies; google didn't have a presence prior to 2000, Apple pre 2000 and post iphone are entirely different businesses, nothing else came to my mind. Amazon? they were around in early days of the dot com (1994!) but I'm not really that familiar with where they stood back around 2000 and didn't want to sample apples and oranges. IBM's other competitors like Digital disappeared, but not because IBM gobbled up their share. IBM compared to itself has not grown. Other companies have grown, through survivorship bias if no other reason.

atmavatar 2y ago

At the beginning of the comparison period, IBM was also pretty heavy into products. For example, in the late 80s and even into the early 90s, the market for PCs was broken up into IBM PCs and compatibles. IBM was the PC. IBM invented many of the technologies that went into the early PCs but pissed away their lead with every single one until we find ourselves today where they no longer manufacture anything that can be found in a modern PC as far as I can tell.

shiroiushi 2y ago

IBM has products too: the Rational tools. Anyone who's used them knows they're amazing pieces of software engineering. /s