jbelkin

How Soon Can Apple's Market Cap Surpass Microsoft's?

face it, the only reason MS stock even has a floor are the funds that have to hold it as part of the Dow component. MS is the GM of technology. They have not have a consumer hit since 1998 - TEN YEARS in technology. MS makes less money on the internet than AOL (MS internet division in the red). MS has failed in EVERY consumer venture since 1998 (WebTV, phones, Zunes, Bob, Vista, etc ... etc ... the only thing Xbox has done is it has caused MS to spend $25 billion to make $15 billion and you can even argue that it eroded the $5k Pc gamer base who switched to a $299 XBox ...). MS is the same as GM - a slow train wreck. $421 BILLION lost and you're still defending the GM of technology. Wake up!

Microsoft Scared of iPhone Domination

this isn't about who is or who isn't evil - after all both are for profit companies. The main difference is Microsoft tries to surround the market so you have no choice but them - except in the age of the internet, it's a non-starter strategy. Apple on the other hand simply decides what they want to do, if you want to use their products, this is our choice of a 'standard,' good or bad we don't care what you think, we picked on for whatever reason, you should trust us - if you don't, that's fine - we don't care - that is how they see LInux, Firefox or Flash. We are not going to publically attack them, we simply dismiss them as un-interesting or unworthy of our mention.

A separate issue is this again proves how inept MS is now - along with the billion dollar XBox writeoff. MS shareholders are suckers and idiots for not caring that the XBox has cost them a minimal $18 BILLION dollars loss in revenue and at least that in equity - even presuming they invested it with zero returns versus massive losses.

Apple For Enterprise: Yes, Change Does Happen

First, you are absolutely right about the seemingly ingrained belief that 'history repeats itself or things don't change' - then when they do, boy do those people jump off the bandwagon. The ipod thing is a perfect example. For the first four years of the ipod, most analysts seem to think it was just a fad and that MS could snap their fingers and take over the market - that it was a replay of the netscape/GUI interface fight without examining that it was a whole new world and that in the internet world - the old rules no longer applied - they have finally come around though of course, hardly anyone admits their poor earlier conclusions.

With that said, there is one philsophical/company culture difference - MS is built to sell in bulk and focused on decision makers in enterprise. They could care less about ease of use for end users - just like decision maker buyers don't care if Office is bloated - as long as it's within their price range and offers the 500 checkpoints they want - does anyone really need 150 starbursts in powerpoint with 100 of those choices dead horse ugly? It's the largest check on the checklist when compared to the competition. And virus and malware - of little consequence to the CAPITAL budget buyer - since maintanence or IT comes out of another budget - not his responsibility. And of MS is eager to please, they'll do whatever it takes to get the sale or in the 1990's buy up the competition and merge it into their app so it's another checklist item and/or more importantly - eliminating another incompatible choice - look at of MS' attempts at creating "standards" that are not standards or a couple weeks ago when they tried to come up with a new format that was "better" than jpeg - like anyone cares.

But in the case of enterprise, part of Apple's non-success is just a different company culture. MS is eager to please by incorporating anything anyone wants into anything as long as you're willing to pay for it and they'll be happy to talk about what's coming next because they want to sell you what you want. Apple is different in that they'll pretty decide what they consider useful or unimportant and if they say no, that's it. So, in one sense MS is better at customer service but the downside is MS will put in 105 things from 75 different requests because they only care about getting the sale so everything is stuffed to the gills and NOTHING is left out out of the code. That looks good on the checklist but to the user? - ugh. So Apple appears aloof or arrogant to enterprise because they say nothing and simply say, "when we're ready, we'll show you."

10 years ago, it was an MS world but now, it's an Apple world because consumers and small cadres drive technology forward - and that's where Apple shines - we love a good surprise and while we say we want things, we don't necessaeily mean it (otherwise we'd be eating sensibly and execercising) - that's why MS is totally confused. They ask people what they want or they come up things that have a longer checklist but people don't buy while Apple doesn't ask anyone - they just unveil things.

So, it's not likely to change much as Apple is not going to hire thousands of sales reps to pound the pavement nor will they offer much guidance beyond what you can guess what Intel is doing ... Apple will gain more shares but not massive shares but that's okay - when you can generate 60% of MS' revenue with 4-5% marketshare of PC's - imagine what 10-14% will deliver.

The 1990's were to MS what the 1950's were to GM.

They still haven't a clue as Steve Ballmer keeps talking about overtaking Google in months ...

Microsoft's R&D Far Outpaces Google and Apple: Is That a Good Thing?

You're absolutely right - spending money wildly on R&D means nothing if you produce nothing. MS seems to be proud to announce they've spent $9 BILLION dollars on Vista & Office 2007. First, how much more do you need to spend on Office? What more of the corporate market share do you hope to grab?

And presuming $8 to $8.5 billion was spent on Vista - so far, NOTHING to show for it and the last year, you'e spent time & more money madly ripping out main features ... and not to rub salt in the wound, Apple not only introduced a complete OS break from the past but managed to provide 3 substantial upgrades with a 4th to come out anyday now ... Apple's R&D in the past 5 years has provided the ipod, world class laptops, innovative designed desktops, the ability to switch processor lines and new and updated evolutionary & revolutionary software. All profitable.

And MS in the past 5 years? Spend $10 BILLION to launch xbox with a profit of ZERO. Spend $4 BILLION to fight AOL with MSN and again, zero profit. Spend a couple billion here and there to lose out in the battles with WebTV, home networking, cableTV, watches and cell phones.

And in the meanwhile, ignore companies like eBay, yahoo & Google ... oh, we'll spend $5 BILLION to catch up ... or another billion to try and catch Apple's ipod with Zune?

And now, they're going to spend $40 billion to prop up Steve Ballmer's stock holdings? Do shareholders really think this and the past efforts are in the best interest of shareholders?

MS seems to be the Halliburton/KBR of technology - money goes in but what's coming out?

Microsoft's iPod Killer Emerges -- Should Apple be Scared? You Bet! (AAPL, MSFT)

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Legacy. Yes, MS was a succesful consumer company until 1998 and they're still living on that legacy.

Intuit is a good point. As I implied, when they actually have to compete and consumers have a real choice - they lose.

Inuit is a tiny spec of a company compared to Ms with basically a niche product but MS could not defeat them.

Ms could ONLY win during the pre-internet era because they were fierce competitors and later illegal competitors in the m,arketplace. When Ms could leverage (illegally) their monopoly in the OS market, they could defeat those companies by trading prodits from the OS to make Office 3x chaeaper tahn their competoitors and//or force manufacturers not to bundle any app they didn't want (like Netscape) but in the post internet & broadband era, it matters little (firefox or Google) - MS like an old general only knows one strategy - surround and buy up everything (outright or in exclusive licensing) but on the internet, that no longer works (ipod & itunes). The consumers choose and they seldom choose MS.

MS has never really competed against PS because they don't really see the market.

It's not 1995 anymore. The old rules do not apply anymore.

If you want a detailed reason, here ya go:

metroxing.blogspot.com...

Microsoft's iPod Killer Emerges -- Should Apple be Scared? You Bet! (AAPL, MSFT)

In case, Andrew Schmidt didn't notice, it's taken MS 9 years to come close to the Treo/Palm and that's WITH the help of partners. They want to go it alone it alone here so their firstv task will be to defeat their "partners," (Creative, iriver, san disk, sony & samsung)

How many more successes can MS or MS shareholders afford?

They've spent about $400 to sell each XBox & 360 - that's $8 BILLION dollars to be third ... which is where they will be in the ipod race ... BTW, third means a marlet share of about 5%.

MS has failed in EVERY consumer venture. MSN, MSN search, WebTv, watch OS, BobOS, The talking barney, the watch OS, home networking, the Ms remote control, and even the palm when the cosnumer amrlet was 40% of the PDA marketplace, etc ... other than buying the 15% of the video game market for $8 BILLION dollars, they pretty much are clueless when it comes to consumers.

It's not just Apple they can't compete against. It's EVERYONE who sells to consumers. MS is great at enterpros selling - completetly clueless when selling to cosnumers (just look at Vista - missed two holiday season and now coming out with 4 similiar sounding versions and offering stickers that say it's capable or Vista-ready? yea, real clear).

MS is done. They are the GM of technology.

Good at fleet selling - not much at anything else.

A New iTunes Rip-Off? Microsoft Reinventing Itself in all the Wrong Ways (MSFT)

Chad is absolutely right but John also brings up an intersting point and why MS' old habits no longer work. BG & MS were brilliant at selling to corporations, agencies & governments because MS looked at the best features and threw them all into their OS & apps. Didn't really matter that you don't need 200 starburst shapes in PPT - it beats Harvard Graphics by 175 shapes.

Corporations who don't mind buying something and getting it right three years later on a maintenace upgrade because they are two budgets from two different departments - the guy who okayed the purchase (capital expenditures) could care less about the upgrade contract or viruses - those costs do not his his bottom line or his responsibility.

Conversely, there are limited sellers to the corporate marketplace - easy for MS to give them free tools or lock up contracts (legal or otherwise) but on the consumer, things are literally the wild west. We'll say one thing but we do not follow through - sure we want a Pc we can write and change our scribbles (tablet pc) but the reality is we're willing to pay maybe a $25 premium and not if it's weird ... or we don't really know what we want until it's out (do I want to convert all my Cd to figital files and carry it around with me? Why?) But then you put an ipod in front of 50 million people and they go - ah ... yes ...

MS is clueless because their old habits/culture doesn't work on consumers.

a) we don't really care if something has more "features," if anything, we actually prefer many things with less features.

b) unlike corporations who will tell you straight out - here's our spec list, consumers say they want video on the phones but not if it's too hard and they won't pay $15 a month for that feature. Or ultimately - show us, if we like it, we'll buy it ... but only after you build the thing.

c) collolary to that is that consumers will not buy if it doesn't work and until you do, we'll wait ... unlike corporations, we only have one budget and as you point out, we do CARE if you copy and WE KNOW.

That's why Ms is confused about consumers in more ways than one. They presume they are smarter than us and don't get it when we don't buy what they offer (MSN, MSN search, WMA stores, WebTV and even XBox) ...

Compounded is that all the real go-getters have left to start their own companies - leaving just bureaucrats who are good at creating their own fiefdom and "maintaining," and with Bill metaphorically gone, it'll only get worse as things will bog down with:

This isn't the way would've done it.

You're not Bill G, I'm not following this order.

and for engineers and programmers, Steve Ballmer is just a pile of sweaty steaming detergent salesman who garners no respect.

MS in the 1990's weere the 1950's to GM. They are ot what they once were ...