Microsoft revenue down 6%, earnings down 30% for third quarter
thestandard.com
thestandard.com
They are delivering very little in the way of innovation and have no real focus as a business.
From my angle their products are less impressive than their peers in each market segment, with the possible exception of the Office franchise.
I have an Xbox 360, which I like, and I manage a SharePoint platform as my job. SharePoint has its moments, but overall it's solid and it works. It's good. It's a standard Microsoft product. Mlah.
But when it comes to computing resources that I own and manage, there's no value on the Microsoft platform any more. We have 3 Mac laptops at home and a Mini for the TV. I have an iPhone despite already having a work-issued BlackBerry (RIM is another story).
The value I get out of OS X may be things the consumer can't see or doesn't see soon enough before purchasing a PC or a Windows Mobile device. Things like antivirus and malware. Things like integration between hardware and software, to which anyone who has used gestures on modern MacBook can testify. Things like instant-on when waking from sleep. Things like simple backups and restores, and transferring user data and configurations from an old Mac to a new one.
I'm sure a lot of those things that differentiate Apple's offering from Microsoft's will not last for a long time. Windows 7 will close the gap. But I'm enjoying these features now and have been enjoying some of them for years. Why wait?
Microsoft will not stand still, and neither will Apple. But unless something happens at the DNA level in those two organizations, I expect Apple's offering to actually increase the gap, because that's been the trend since OS X was introduced in 2001. Windows XP was introduced later the same year . . . and I'm using it here at work to post this.
The fact that I'm using an 8 year old OS at work fully underscores the challenges faced by Microsoft. We have no plans to upgrade. None.
So Apple is the platform of innovation. They're innovating at the OS level and people who innovate are drawn to the capabilities to afford. The next generation of software is being brought about on platforms other than Windows.
Machiavelli nailed it in 1505 and in 2009 Microsoft is suffering the effects. A long but poignant quotation:
"It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from the fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them." (http://gojomo.blogspot.com/2002/06/machiavellis-innovators-d...)
The guys who got rich at Microsoft are still there, strangling the place because they only know one way to get rich and damned if they're going to throw that away. The smart guys take off, unwilling to be stifled, so you're left with worker bees who nod when told to nod.
The best thing that could happen for Microsoft would be a new senior management team. The second best thing would be to force them all to use any products other than their own.
Can anybody give an example of something that makes Mac OS X better than Vista? I am not worried about driver issues because my hardware vendor gives me good drivers. I'm not worried about malware because I use UAC and because the network clients I use (e.g. IE8 and Chrome) all use more layers of malware mitigation than are even available on Mac OS X.
Also, why do you count your company's preference for Microsoft's 8-year-old version of Windows over modern Mac OS X against Microsoft? Doesn't it show instead that Windows was better 8 years ago than Mac OS X is today?
It's Unix. That's the big one. Unix isn't necessarily the Platonic ideal of an operating system, but it is the standard. Learn it, and you know an OS that runs on almost all the hardware in the world and that powers the majority of the web.
No more Cygwin. No struggling with bizarrely different Windows semantics. No falling behind the open-source development curve -- git works better, ruby works better. Any software which is developed on Mac or Linux works better on Macs or Linux boxes -- that's where the bugs get fixed first.
Obvious other reasons to love the Mac include really not worrying about malware, and the Mac software community and its well-designed Mac-only apps. I'm not a heavy user of such things, yet even I have a few that I would be loath to give up: 1Password, Quicksilver, Textmate [1], Pixelmator, xScope, iWork, HandBrake, VisualHub.
A final obvious reason: Mac users have Windows around if we want it. [2] I've got two Windows VMs on this machine right now, which I use for the dreaded Quickbooks (argh), the occasional game, and (of course) cross-browser testing of web page rendering.
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[1] Though I use emacs most of the time.
[2] Windows users can apparently also have the Mac around... but it's not supported, and they have to solve a lot of those pesky driver issues.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941
"It’s really simple. Safari on the Mac is easier to exploit. The things that Windows do to make it harder (for an exploit to work), Macs don’t do. Hacking into Macs is so much easier. You don’t have to jump through hoops and deal with all the anti-exploit mitigations you’d find in Windows."
"No falling behind the open-source development curve"
I agree with this one somewhat.
All others are simply not convincing enough. Malware argument is just bogus.
OS X features are implemented with attention to all of the details that make them a joy to use. I rarely get frustrated anymore because my computer isn't doing want I want it to.
Check that. I still get seriously frustrated whenever I make a new feature for our site, verify that it works in every browser other than IE, and then test it in IE to see that I need to perform some javascript, css & dom acrobatics to get it working.
Sleep mode that works (quickly).
We didn't upgrade to Vista because there was no compelling reason. The hardware requirements were stiff and none of our business software was actually going to run better on Vista than it already did on XP.
We still pay Microsoft plenty through our Enterprise Agreement, and they're a good company to deal with if you're running a corporation.
I hope I didn't imply that I dislike Microsoft or their software. I tried not to. I honestly want them to get BETTER at what they're doing because competition is healthy in any market.
I think Microsoft has an innovation problem, and an innovation problem is death in the technology game. If you're not innovating, someone will innovate for you. The lock-in that Windows and Office provided over the years is decreasing as things move to the cloud, so personal preference can now be a bigger factor in the choice of OS you use to reach the cloud.
Regarding your question about something that makes OS X better than Vista, for your purposes the answer may be "nothing." I too use Chrome on the PC and love it. I wish it was available on the Mac.
I do believe Apple is innovating faster than Microsoft, especially on the OS front. When one considers OS X drives the iPhone as well as the Mac, there's no question who is driving the industry at this point. The iPhone was launched publicly over two years ago and still no one has released anything close. Two years is an eternity in technology, and until someone releases a viable competitor we don't yet know how truly far behind second place is.
Spend some time with a Mac. Borrow a friend's. You'll like it. It may not be for you, but you'll appreciate seeing things through a slightly different lens.
Mouse over a word, Ctrl + Cmd + d. Love it.
I can't compare Mac & Vista but I know that the 8 year pld XP is better than Vista. I'm happy with Ubuntu GNU/Linux though.
By the way, your use of the Apple ticker symbol made me curious, so I checked AAPL vs MSFT on Google Finance. I am amazed that APPL has 2/3 the market cap of MSFT but only 1/10th the profit.
Your argument makes zero sense. You may believe MS's monopoly is insecure, but if the markets believed that as well, then you wouldn't have to pay so much to own MS. The short term dividend returns would be greater because investors would be expecting capital loss.
1 year of indexes
S&P 500: -38.26%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -37.66%
Nasdaq Composite: -33.56%