Earnings Preview: Apple to surpass Microsoft in revenue this quarter - Page 3

Doh! Maybe doing financial predictions the day before Microsoft released their figures wasn't the best idea!

I'm not a financial analyst at all, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft continue moderate growth at least for a few more years. Enterprise avoided Vista like the plague but I'm seeing plans of Windows 7 roll-outs from pretty much everyone I deal with. I can't see where growth will come from after that though.

I wonder why?



No... bad Chopper, bad...

What I meant was, prognosticating is a tough discipline, so it's not surprising that there's the odd glitch or two. So I'd say Andy's prediction had a real logic to it, and he had me believing. Until I saw an RSS feed showing an unexpectedly good quarter for MS that is. Maybe there's reason to believe that MS won't be able to continue their present form though. Or then again...

Ah, who'd be a prognosticator?

I get why it's nice to compare apple and microsfot given there history. But in reality apples success isn't at microsofts expense. Apple have just grown in other markets.

Even if they do pass ms in revenue let's face it profit is the important figure revenue is meaningless.

In terms of Market cap though, apple should be lower. Ms has a lot more products with a lot more lock in with customers. Apple have what's currently the best phone, but a few years ago motorolla had the best phone and now there tiny in comparison. My point, apples more of a risk long term, they need more revenue sources. Right now a failure on any product would have huge effects.

It seems your rather blinkered view means you forget that Microsoft can (and is) capable of strong growth itself, while being highly profitable (more so than Apple - even now).

Apple a a great company, but the world is big enough for them both to be highly sucessful. Predictions of Microsoft's demise are extreemly ill informed.

Their Quarter and Annual results exceeded analyst expectations - and while Apple has significantly closed the revenue gap - Microsoft did not in fact fall behind in revenue as predicted by Appleinsider (who are just a touch biased in reporting terms)

This quarter at least Microsoft had higher revenue, plus their higher margin meant they were signfiicantly more profitable than Apple - hardly signs of a 'failing' company. I'm all for competition - but please try and keep facts ahead of fiction.

How will the Redmond behemoth grow? Using what market? They have demonstrated very limited success in the consumer market - unless it is a heavily subsidized games system or a license agreement with PC makers.The only other market they have readily available is licensing into the Android platform a la HTC. If my insider sources are indicative of the current culture (they may not be insiders much longer if the layoffs continue), there is every earmark of the matured and toxic organization - where managers fight tooth and nail for prestige marks against each other and leaving the real business of the company undirected. There is no single vision, there is no steel hand of Bill Gates at the helm, and Steve Ballmer is not visionary and has sweaty palms on the wheel. There is too much hierarchy and the "taller" a company gets, the less efficient and effective it is. Microsoft has gotten pretty tall.

Microsoft can continue to grow and the recent Quarter results (best in company history) just demonstrated the fact very clearly (including still delivering more NET profit than Apple). That's not to put Apple down by the way, I think Apple are doing an incredible job and will almost certainly deleiver more revenue (NOT profit) than MS in the next (Holiday) Quarter. (never sure if that's good or bad for consumers, stockholders yes, but consumers - it just means they are charging you and I more than we really need to pay :-(maybe we need to start calling them 'Apple$'!)

However back on topic, your wrong to think that because Apple (or Google or... xxx) grow, that Microsoft can't and have no markets to expand in. Putting aside the fact they remain domionant in Enterprise, their consumer business is growing, they are genuinly sucessfull in Games (note - all Games systems HW is subsidised- that's the business model, sell razors, then sell blades) the Xbox division is profitable and has been for some time. They have challanges to be sure, some of which are due to being a big and mature company, with the management challenges that brings.. but don't dismiss the skills and resources they have and the capacity to innovate. In the consumer space the new Live services offering is looking strong and puts many of their so called 'cloud' competitors to shame. (been using Google Wave recently?.. no, because Google just pulled it).

My point being, it's a competitive and rapidly evolving market and Microsoft have good people and technology too - and can be more nimble than they are given gredit for.

I'd love that to be the case...but...are you suggesting 90% of computers, particularly for work, will be running MacOS or Linux in 5 years? I'd bet Mac gains a few percent, Linux maybe 1%. Windows will still have 85% (vs. ~90-95% now) and also IE will still have the majority for browser share. It'd probably take 15 years for Mac OS X to beat Windows. Also, I just can't see Apple controlling everyone's computers, at least under Steve Jobs. The guy is a control freak. Businesses don't have time for "You're holding it wrong", the Apple Way or the Highway attitude. Sure Windows has more bugs. Apple used to allow users to customize their machines. No longer. The lockdown on iOS and iPhone will send iPhones to the minority, maybe 10% of phones, in a year or two, with Android being the new Windows for phones. OS X allows for more customization, but I just don't see Apple scaling up to replace WinTel. Apple has a real problem working with other companies. (Receives "Needs Improvement" in the "Works Well with Others" section of report card!)

People will still be using Office on Windows (Mac Office will never match it), AutoCAD for PC (I assume Mac AutoCAD will similarly not be as full-featured or supported as on PC), ArcGIS on PCs, Oracle, MS SQL, SPSS, SAS, ERDAS, Siebel, Internet Explorer, etc. All the big-time software that alas is Windows-only. I can't see any of those programs being better on Mac or Linux for another decade or two. I'm just throwing this out there...I hope I'm totally wrong and you are right on!!

Sorry for off topic...but when you think about it this is simply amazing. The Mac Pro of today supports easily 48 GB of RAM. That is 1,000,000 times more computing power in 28 years of evolution!

That is like comparing a human being to a simple ant.

...except a human brain "only" has 400,000 times the amount of brain cells than an ant. (100 billion vs 250.000)

The Mac pro of today is more powerful compared to the apple II, than a human compared too an ant.