Malkiel

What If Microsoft Is Pursuing the Wrong Business?

Thank you, I've been saying the same thing, that MS is decades premature in anticipating where their business is going and has been damaging their outrageously successful software business with all of this obsession about "web 2.0" and online services. Milking your cow may not be glamorous, but it rewards the shareholders big time. Ironically, AT&T, Apple's partner in the iphone and arguably the spokesman for the internet since their wires ARE the internet, said recently that online services will shut down the net in just a couple of years unless massive infrastructure improvements happen. Then software will look very good, indeed.

Another concept you'll never see in a Ballmer speech is the customer--those of us who buy his stuff and have to evaluate how it fits in our lives and budgets are totally taken for granted by this schmo. It must be nice to be a monopoly and not have to worry about defections by the masses, but like eBay discovered just a little honey would go a long way in keeping consumer loyalty and making everything else they do so much less abrasive...