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Microsoft is far from failed. They might not be doing great with tablets and phones, but they have a few other businesses that happen to make billions upon bill

Microsoft is far from failed. They might not be doing great with tablets and phones, but they have a few other businesses that happen to make billions upon billions each quarter. The PC is declining, it isn't dead. And it won't be any time soon.

seldo 13y ago
You are absolutely correct. In the same way, in 2012, half of IBM's profits were from the sales and servicing of mainframes[1]. IBM is not dead, it's just irrelevant. And that's where Microsoft is apparently unstoppably heading. [1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/09/ibms-mainframes http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/09/ibms-mainf...
- adventured 13y ago
  IBM is irrelevant. Extreme exaggeration at its finest. Irrelevant in what? According to whom? Very important questions. The only way I'm able to fathom someone being able to claim that IBM is "irrelevant," is if said person has never done any level of enterprise or government IT business anywhere on earth. Must be nice to have an irrelevant $100b sales business with $16b in profit and 434,000 employees. Well let's see here. By that measure, the following companies are apparently irrelevant too: Oracle, HP, Dell, Cisco, Intel, SAP, Microsoft, EMC - they only tally a cool $450 billion or so in sales. They must not do anything useful at all to earn that. Irrelevant must mean: not hip or fashionable, and not dominate in consumer smart phones or tablets.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    Irrelevant to business desktop and mobile computing. But they don't even compete in that segment any more, having sold it to Lenovo, so that's hardly surprising.
ams6110 13y ago
So they are in the "cash cow" phase of their life, heading towards the "dog" quarter. http://www.netmba.com/strategy/matrix/bcg/ http://www.netmba.com/strategy/matrix/bcg/
- clarky07 13y ago
  so you think microsoft is heading to a low market share position in the markets they currently have ~90% market share in? That's certainly an interesting opinion. Everyone else is just sad that the PC market isn't growing fast anymore.

seldo 13y ago

You are absolutely correct. In the same way, in 2012, half of IBM's profits were from the sales and servicing of mainframes[1]. IBM is not dead, it's just irrelevant. And that's where Microsoft is apparently unstoppably heading. [1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/09/ibms-mainframes http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/09/ibms-mainf...

adventured 13y ago
IBM is irrelevant. Extreme exaggeration at its finest. Irrelevant in what? According to whom? Very important questions. The only way I'm able to fathom someone being able to claim that IBM is "irrelevant," is if said person has never done any level of enterprise or government IT business anywhere on earth. Must be nice to have an irrelevant $100b sales business with $16b in profit and 434,000 employees. Well let's see here. By that measure, the following companies are apparently irrelevant too: Oracle, HP, Dell, Cisco, Intel, SAP, Microsoft, EMC - they only tally a cool $450 billion or so in sales. They must not do anything useful at all to earn that. Irrelevant must mean: not hip or fashionable, and not dominate in consumer smart phones or tablets.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Irrelevant to business desktop and mobile computing. But they don't even compete in that segment any more, having sold it to Lenovo, so that's hardly surprising.

ams6110 13y ago

So they are in the "cash cow" phase of their life, heading towards the "dog" quarter. http://www.netmba.com/strategy/matrix/bcg/ http://www.netmba.com/strategy/matrix/bcg/

clarky07 13y ago
so you think microsoft is heading to a low market share position in the markets they currently have ~90% market share in? That's certainly an interesting opinion. Everyone else is just sad that the PC market isn't growing fast anymore.