Microsoft Pulling Even with Apple in Ranks of Biggest Companies
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
If you look at their Q2 filing [1], their business has 3 main components:
Productivity and Business Processes ($9.0B) - includes office, Microsoft Dynamics, LinkedIn
Intelligent cloud ($7.8B) - includes server proudcts and azure
Personal computing ($12.2) - includes Windows OEM revenue, xbox, search advertising, Surface
It seems to me that Microsoft has a much more diversified set of products than Apple [2] with more resiliency in terms of revenue. The business world isn't migrating away from Excel any time soon. Their cloud business is growing strongly. And for the foreseeable future, Windows is the only OS for PCs outside of MacOS which is more of a luxury product (I love linux, but it just hasn't taken off for mainstream consumers).
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2018-Q2...
[2] about 2/3 of apple's revenue comes from the iPhone. See https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q2_FY18_Data_Summary.pdf.
Less features, more expensive, and anti-consumer practices?
This is the example of short term profits to drive up stock prices. Squeezing current users, spending limited money on improvements, and charging more money will work temporarily.
That said, Nintendo has been doing this for a decade, and they somehow survive. Marketing might be more powerful than competition...
EDIT: Due to HN whales(or apple marketing teams), Anti consumer practices-
>Intentionally slowing down old OS
>Proprietary connectors
>Luxury pricing
>Limited to App store and removal of apps
>Limited hardware
An argument could be made for 'safe apps', but the rest of that list is a hard 'No, that is bad for the user'.
Or infinite choice and configuration is actually an anti-feature.
I don't agree with "anti-consumer practices."
Microsoft are utter and total schizophrenic clowns in comparison.
I spent years betting on windows phone getting mugged over and over again. My iPhone just bloody works. No other vendor has managed that yet.
One of the main reasons why I am not upgrading my iPhone 7 Plus this year is that iOS 12 has made it amazingly smooth. I have an iPhone 5S and even that's fantastically smooth with iOS 12. This is not my experience alone btw. So I think you are just making stuff up here.
Apple has admitted that they slow down older phones, due to battery issues.
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-slows-down-older-iphone-batt...
Don't forget ChromeOS. The recent retail discount frenzy in the US (Black Friday and Cyber Monday) has opened my eyes to just how popular and affordable Chromebooks are.
Edit: To clarify, I know several people (including on HN) who are taking advantage of these discounts because they use Chromebooks. Obviously discounts themselves aren't indicative of popularity.
Careful judging popularity increases based on advertisements alone, especially in large-scale discount situations, as the sales can sometimes indicate the opposite.
There are currently discount frenzies on the essential phone...
That really isn't happening. In fact laptop sales are now rising again whilst phones and tablets are saturated and static in volume.
Not true.
1- https://www.apple.com/business/resources/
2 - https://www.apple.com/support/enterprise/
3 - https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2014/07/15Apple-and-IBM-Forge...
Both companies are going to keep doing great, but as I said in a prior post, I do wonder how resilient Apple's revenues will be if we have a downturn in the business cycle.
Xbox and surface have been surging though, which is the real strength in that profit center.
huh? Windows licensing revenue is up 15% YoY
Agree, it no longer is the marquee product brand for Microsoft but every shipping product at the heart is still based around Windows (Xbox, Surface, HoloLens, Azure).
Buy Adobe to compete with Office.
Buy Salesforce to compete with Dynamics CRM.
Buy SAP to compete with Dynamics ERP.
Counterpoint: many people are moving to a future where they don't have a home PC - they have a smartphone, a tablet, and maybe a console or entertainment system.
I've been using Typescript in an Electron project I've been working on (https://getpolarized.io/) which is a doc manager for PDF and web content.
Typescript is awesome. It's basically Java 8/9 in terms of language design. Supports interfaces, generics, etc.
If you add VS code and their github acquisition they're going to be in front of a lot of developers in the next 2-5 years.
Lot of Javascript developers I think. There was a time when every Java application was supposed to be written in NodeJS. Thankfully, better sense prevailed.
Microsoft can no longer rely on Windows alone to pull developers and products to Windows so instead they're trying to attract developers to build for any & every platform on Microsoft's stack and support Windows as a by product and maybe choose Azure as well.
So in a sense they've switched to a carrot model rather than a stick model.
https://github.com/Dean177/jest-to-match-shape-of
I had the same issue, types don't mean anything if they don't align with the data that your app is consuming. My solution was that matcher combined with some integration tests.
- "This thing was null but you didn't account for this case" - "You should have a number here but something returned a string" - "You have made an invisible typo in a property name" - "You have not handled all possible values in this function" - "You accessed some data internal to a class that wasn't meant to be changed"
Basically my experience is that is substantially cuts down on the number of stupid bugs that end up in my code. The code completion is also fantastic!
Which lib is used for pdf processing ?
Is epub support in the roadmap ?
There's no Next Big Thing in the near future, no "must-have" consumer product. 3D TV was a flop. VR goggles were a niche product. Cloud-connected surveillance ("speakers") and computer-controlled woks (big in Asia) are just not that big. Foxconn sees this and is cutting back.
How can you know this? Is there a precedent of knowing beforehand right before the "next big thing" is about to happen?
10 years out, there could be something completely new. But there is lead time.
This story starts to make sense as you look at Apple's product portfolio. AAPL's cash cow is the iPhone. Yes they make tons of money on other products like laptops, tablets, and watches, but the lion's share of the revenue comes from iPhones. This has been the case for a long time, so why now has the stock pulled back? It's because now the ASP on the iPhone is likely topped out for a while, especially as the economy starts to slow down. So ASP is topped out, what about unit growth? If prices remain constant but units sold continues to go up, wouldn't that mean increased revenue? Yes, but that too seems to be stagnating according to the most recent earnings reports. And that's the story, IMO. Revenues on the most important products have seemingly topped out and probably won't increase significantly from here. That could of course change if for example lots of Android users unexpectedly flock to iPhones. There's no reason to believe this will happen, though.
What about other lines of revenue? Services, for instance? Apple Music and video content are commodity businesses so likely won't see much revenue expansion from here. Wearables are probably the main bright spot.
Let's not forget that the entire market for tech stocks is in the midst of a huge sell-off which is probably most to blame for Apple's decline. There is probably two-way influence here.
Apple was basically rerated over the past year or two from a stable dividend generator to a growthier stock and is now being rerated back to stable dividend generator. I don't think Apple has any near-term competitive threats to its business so should bottom out sometime soon, but if the stock is to resume its uptrend it has to show significant growth in new areas.
- force-touch touchpads are so useless than not even them use the technology to any meaningful extent
- the Touchbar is completely useless, and anecdotally people stop using it after a few days
- their new butterfly keyboards are a nightmare to type on (albeit that's definitely subjective), and stop functioning with dust particles, and they haven't even acknowledged the problem before being hit with 2 class actions
- they've removed all useful ports from their laptops, and headphone jacks from their phones.
What a shit show.
I don't know much about Steve Jobs, but I imagine he cared more about making a great product than optimizing earnings. I also think he cared more about making a great product than about forced innovation
And I think that's different now, and ironically that's one of the things holding the share price back.
We would need an Apple insider to confirm, but it just seems like some changed that took away whatever it was that they could do when he was there.
Apple with Steve Jobs was great, then it sucked when he was gone, then great again while he was there, and now it sucks again.
It did so well in the past that it won't go bankrupt anytime soon, but the magic is definitely gone.
I agree 100%. Ex: Steve Jobs loved minimalism, cargo cult now insists on eliminating all ports
force-touch touchpads are so useless than not even them use the technology to any meaningful extent
I love this technology. Use it literally every day!
the Touchbar is completely useless, and anecdotally people stop using it after a few days
See above :) I quite enjoy the UX of this, especially for things like trimming video, brushed in Photoshop, stuff like that… basically gauges and pallets work quite well!
- their new butterfly keyboards are a nightmare to type on (albeit that's definitely subjective), and stop functioning with dust particles, and they haven't even acknowledged the problem before being hit with 2 class actions
First point is subjective as you say (and personally I now find the old keyboards weird and mushy!) Breakdown does appear to be an issue, though.
they've removed all useful ports from their laptops
Could have retained the HDMI I guess, but I reckon most people probably didn't use much other than that! Bit of a downgrade though, agreed.
Basically, I think the "shitshow" of recent Apple devices has been a tad overstated by some people. I get that not everybody's going to be happy with those design decisions… but I don't think it's quite as "sky is falling" as we often hear.
Like it always happen, although power users (developers, graphic designers) have historically saved or at least kept Apple afloat they're now getting completely ignored. For this reason, critics from power users will be a lot more negative then critics from other types of users.
The sky isn't falling, sure. We can even say that Apple is now a different company without debating whether it's for better or for worse. Definitely a lot worse for power users, though.
edit: not to mention 30% app store fee for developers.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/windows/agreements/ap...
The Store Fee is:
i. Thirty percent (30%) of Net Receipts for: (a) all Apps and In-App Products made available in the Store and billed to Customers on a non-subscription basis, and (b) all Games (and In-App Products in Games).
ii. Fifteen percent (15%) of Net Receipts for any Apps that are not Games (and any In-App Products in such Apps) that are billed to Customers on a subscription basis.
See also this blog post:
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/05/07/a-new-micr...
"consumer applications (not including games) sold in Microsoft Store will deliver to developers 95% of the revenue"
The better comparison on PC is Steam, which takes basically the same cut as Apple takes.
A low income person is excluded from developing for Apple. Established, middle-upper class and corporations are the only people that can afford to develop for Apple. Apple is effectively widening the gap between rich and poor.
I know this is pure speculation but does anyone think they may bring it back if they can do it under the screen? Also waiting for them to add mouse support to ipad. I am convinced this will happen in a few years (prolly not tho).
If you assume we might head into a recession due to the trade war, Apple has never really had to go through that with their current high end product line. The iPhone was introduced in 2007 and was early cycle even during the financial collapse. It will be interesting to see if the business cycle greatly hurts their sales. I think that's what so many are worried about. Especially when we have their vendors cutting forecast (and yes there have been some crying wolf over the years, but eventually the wolf will show) and Apple being less transparent about unit sales. I suspect they will see a fall in sales when we do enter a recession, but I am encouraged that they have such control over their supply line that they won't get stuck with inventory gluts, like...uh Nvidia.
I mean back a few years ago Microsoft had a massive write-off from hardware...and that's not even a fraction of their business, imagine if Apple had to write off a ton of hardware, it would be brutal. That seems unlikely though, as I said, they seem to have a good handle on their inventory.
On the other end, macOS is definitely better than Microsoft in pretty much every aspect (although that might be subjective).
Me, I'm currently on a Surface Book "clone"--meaning a laptop that has the exact same Chinese, awesome 3000:2000 touch screen, running an hybrid of Xfce with Kwin and other components to make Linux look a little prettier.
The surface book is actually known to have thermal problems, and the surface pro 4 almost went to class action before microsoft organized a replacement program.
http://www.classlawdc.com/2018/02/06/microsoft-surface-pro-4...
On the other end, macOS is definitely better than Microsoft in pretty much every aspect (although that might be subjective).
As someone who hops between macOS and windows I'd have to disagree with that. Window management on laptops is way better on windows. There's no good way to cope with the dock on a small screen. It's difficult to resize windows (very small targets and no "dock to resize" feature) and the window behavior when maximized (fullscreen) is very clumsy. Also, macOS has no equivalent to the windows timeline.
Consider all the people you know well. How many have switched from Android to OS X in the last 5 years? How many have switched from OS X to Android in the last 5 years? In my household, 2 switched to Android, 0 switched the other way. In my broader network I'm aware of several more switching to Android, none switching back.
There is a good reason for that. An iPhone with equivalent specs to an Android costs 2x as much. The user experience isn't that much better. (Many people who switch say that the Apple experience was actually worse.)
The cheapest phone that Apple wants to sell you is an XS for about $1000. You can get a top of the line Android for less than that - with specs that beat the best model that Apple has.
So Apple is fighting a rearguard action - squeeze the most profit that it can out of a clientele that is slowly disappearing on them. In this world, they can't afford defects.
So what happens? I personally have an iPhone X because my sister gave it to me as a present. This month the display became non-responsive (that's the bug that has Apple's stock falling). They fixed that after most of a week without a phone. I've now got it randomly deciding that Face ID no longer works, the volume randomly going between off and on, and it recharges when it feels like it wants to. I've got to wait most of a week for them to fix THAT as well. (Have you ever had your phone decide to dial its volume to 0 in the middle of a phone call or listening to a book on your commute? Yeah, it sucks just as much as you would guess.) In the meantime I'm looking at my wife's phone with a growing amount of envy.
When Apple stops being willing to fix their phone under warranty, what do you think I'll replace it with?
Anecdotes are worthless because one anecdote counters another. I don't know anyone who has converted from Apple to Android, but I know several who've left Android for Apple. However, since we're both only throwing out our anecdotal experience and not data, there's not much of a conclusion we can draw from it.
On top of this, iPhones handily trounce equivalent-generation Android phones in hardware performance, so it’s difficult to see how you can so confidently assert that Android phones are cheaper for the performance you get. The Pixel 2 XL and Galaxy Note 8 are still absolutely shamed performance-wise by the iPhone 8.
I'd say iPhones last far longer then most (not all!) android devices. My mom still uses a 5S. It still gets security updates (and feature updates and optimizations!) how many android devices can say that? Even Google's nexus series can't say that anymore.
That said the 6 and 6p have been dying a lot recently from cellular/wifi issues or some other weird things - things we can't replace or fix (sadly our store is unequiped to do motherboard level repairs, but IMO only 2 employees would even have a chance at attempting something like that). I think this comes back to the bending issue they had. iPhone 6 phones are still aplenty in the wild though.
The ones that they want you to buy are listed at https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/. Go there and look at the phones that they list.
Can you find the cheaper phone? Yes. Its specs don't compare to the https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/phones/galaxy-s/galaxy-s8-... for the same price.
As for iPhones lasting longer, it certainly used to be true. I went out of my way to buy Apple products for close to 20 years, in large part because of the reliability that they gave. However reliability of Apple devices seems like it has gone downhill in the last few years. Look at https://ifixit.org/blog/10229/macbook-pro-keyboard/ for example.
My anecdotal experience fits. In the last 5 years I personally bought 3 new phones. One died 3 days out of warranty, one is the phone I described above, and the other is still being used by my son. My wife switched after her phone had reliability problems, and my step-son's switch came after his phone just died.
The cheapest iphone that apple sells is certainly not an XS for $1000, the cheapest phone on their website is a cool $449:
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-7
The problems I faced with my many android phones dwarf the amount of problems I've had with the two iPhones that I've owned (7 Plus + XS)
It's important to understand that these kind of experiences are anecdotal and have a history of being over-reported by tech news media (think "bendgate" and "squeezegate")
This is not why Apple's stock is falling at all... it was forecasted that future production rates were expected to be lower than expected. Manufacturing suppliers were also affected by this. Not from some bug.