More bullish on MS if Nadella is allowed to continue. I don't know if they'll ever be as important to consumers as they were, but they have a solid chance at transitioning to a powerful services and enterprise company, like IBM. Microsoft also has multiple revenue streams, whereas Google is still just an ad company.
I'd also add that Microsoft now owns what is currently the most popular video game around, Minecraft, which will introduce Microsoft to a whole generation of consumers they otherwise wouldn't have had (people under 12).
"... whereas Google is still just an ad company." Exactly!
If that ?Search rumor comes to fruition and looking at the success of Apple Maps, despite the rocky start, in terms of Apple user take up ... and given the dominance of Apple's Mobile web presence ... I'd say a Samsung-esque profit scenario seems quite likely for Google in the not too distant future.
At least Nadella is willing to make changes, and Gates doesnt appear to be stopping him.
It's notable that now that Office is free for the most part, they're preparing an Android version. Which will probably be iffy, despite Microsoft's considerable software talent(yes, it is considerable, superior to Apple's in some cases), due to the craptastic nature of the platform.
re: main article - those of us old enough to remember, harken back to the days when Excel on a Mac was better than Excel on a PC (primarily due to the underlying Windows/DOS conflagration). Maybe Gates is saying 2015 will be "1985 all over again"
It's only notable in that MS has fully embraced subscription licensing. Supporting Android for free is like getting an AOL CD in the mail, low cost to deliver, and if 1% convert and pay for a full office 365 subscription, they get a huge profit.
"... whereas Google is still just an ad company." Exactly!
If that ?Search rumor comes to fruition and looking at the success of Apple Maps, despite the rocky start, in terms of Apple user take up ... and given the dominance of Apple's Mobile web presence ... I'd say a Samsung-esque profit scenario seems quite likely for Google in the not too distant future.
I think you're wrong in that Google does drive some level of innovation and is less limited in how it can garner profit.
Google can compete with Apple on the SW/services side. Samsung cannot. And services (not the HW) is the end game.
Part of Google's evil genius is that they are pushing the envelope in many directions. Not happy with being their own CDN, Google is looking at pulling fiber to get household lockin. Google can support all hardware, Samsung cannot.
And most of all, Google is small and agile (at the top) compared to Samsung. There is less divisional pressure to make a profit. Google is an integrated company, Samsung a comglomerate. Google can 'sacrifice' some profits in the Android space, to ensure a company wide win. Samsung's Division VP have no such strategy, therefore they must compete in their sector and maximize profits, which may, in fact, lessen the global success of their Division.
It was interesting to hear @asymco on his podcast (Critical Path) hypothesize that Samsung may soon make more money per iPhone (due to the chips it's sells to Apple) than per Samsung made phone, and how Samsung's Leadership may react to that. [The key point is the royalties Samsung has to pay to Microsoft, Google, and the fines to Apple make Samsung phones very expensive to make, and racing to the bottom, Samsung may end up making less per phone than it's competitors, to the point where it would be more profitable to just take all the SemiConductor capacity dedicated to Samsung phones and make a Deal with Apple to sole source components for iOS devices].
Google has a much longer view, and a much richer set of services that in the end game look better than just selling commodity mobile hardware (because that's the end game for android phones. 8000 flavors of phone/tablet/wearables all making next to nothing in profits)
Just between the two. They've been going back and forth in terms of greater market cap but recently Microsoft took a $25B lead. Microsoft stock is up 7% the past month and 29% YTD. Google is down 4% in the past month and 2% YTD. Personally I'm more bullish on Microsoft. And my guess is some of the money coming out of Google is going into not just Apple but Microsoft as well.
"... whereas Google is still just an ad company." Exactly!
If that ?Search rumor comes to fruition and looking at the success of Apple Maps, despite the rocky start, in terms of Apple user take up ... and given the dominance of Apple's Mobile web presence ... I'd say a Samsung-esque profit scenario seems quite likely for Google in the not too distant future.
I'd love to see Apple double down on software improvements. Make their first party iOS apps world class rather than just good enough for the default app. I'd love to see them put Google apps to shame and not give iOS users much incentive to use Google apps.
I think you're wrong in that Google does drive some level of innovation and is less limited in how it can garner profit.
Google can compete with Apple on the SW/services side. Samsung cannot. And services (not the HW) is the end game.
Part of Google's evil genius is that they are pushing the envelope in many directions. Not happy with being their own CDN, Google is looking at pulling fiber to get household lockin. Google can support all hardware, Samsung cannot.
But again, all their profit is in advertising.
I wish I could find a better picture I saw recently that shows the breakdown of sales between Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple, as far as direct/indirect/etc revenue was per company.
The rest of their activities outside of search are just subsidized money losers.
More bullish on MS if Nadella is allowed to continue. I don't know if they'll ever be as important to consumers as they were, but they have a solid chance at transitioning to a powerful services and enterprise company, like IBM. Microsoft also has multiple revenue streams, whereas Google is still just an ad company.
I'd also add that Microsoft now owns what is currently the most popular video game around, Minecraft, which will introduce Microsoft to a whole generation of consumers they otherwise wouldn't have had (people under 12).
I see Nadella's leadership as safe, not much vision. His vision is the same as most any developer. That's probably why Bill gates wanted him, he knew the Microsoft he made may not survive another large gamble. As much money as they have, they can only throw away so much of it and still have the resources to be a big player in the areas of their choosing. To me, satya is a concession that microsoft lost the bet. They're willing to play nice with Apple, but I think Bill and Ballmer had too much pride to be the face of that concession. I don't see Microsoft grabbing the spotlight from Apple anymore - unless they have a word processor with some amazing feature. /s They're essentially giving up on a mobile OS. Just look at their surface commercials, no longer even comparing it to the iPad. People weren't crazy over side by side apps like they thought. People didn't want their OS to look like a 1990's web page like they thought. I have an office mate who was forced to use Windows 8 for a year now, with no preconceived notions, and she said that after using it for a year, she's positive she doesn't like it. Like she said, it forces her to stay in this environment away from the desktop that feels confined. To me, it looks like they tried to shoehorn the iPads concept onto the desktop. Their ultimate demise was listening to a crowd of pimply teenage followers who were going to praise whatever changes they made instead of the end user. This means that MS missed out on the next big thing in computing. It's funny because they thought that history would repeat itself, and they could just release a copycat product and people would flock to it. The difference is that Apple isn't a company in its infancy anymore. They can play with a giant company - like IBM. They've got the best engineers in the business, and money and experience. Microsoft severely underestimated Apple this time. Now they can't even play catch up and have to reinvent themself as an app maker. With the iPad pro on the horizon, Apples vision of the future is going to eat Microsoft's lunch. iOS is the future of computing.
Who are people here more bullish on Microsoft or Google?
It depends on the timeframe. I'm more bullish on Google for the near term outlook, let's say the next five years. Not that Microsoft has any risk in going out of business, they still turn a good profit.
If we're talking long-term, like fifty, one hundred years, I'd lean more toward Microsoft, but they simply couldn't run their business in fifty years as today. Something major would have to change, like exiting out of the consumer marketplace.
IBM is an example of a company that has successfully exited out of the consumer space, as well as many other technical spaces that seemingly appeared to be core businesses (like medical equipment).
HP is a company that is still struggling to take measures to ensure another fifty years of existence. There have been balky attempts to exit out of the consumer space, get back into it (e.g., short-lived webOS acquisition), etc. At this point, I'm guessing that some of the HP board are regretful that they sent Leo Apotheker packing in 2011 and replaced him with an ineffective Meg Whitman. Today, HP intends on splitting the company in two, one consumer, one enterprise by fall 2015. Now if they had followed Apotheker's course, they would be 3+ years into that migration.
If you asked if Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo would be around in 2114, I'd pick Nintendo. Like IBM, Nintendo is a 100+ year old corporation that has reinvented itself several times.
Despite all the diverse and occasionally interesting dabbling by Google like self-driving cars (still around), Google Wave (defunct), SketchUp (now owned by Trimble), almost all of their revenue comes from online advertising business, primarily their closed-source, proprietary Google AdWords service. I'm not convinced that one-trick pony is good enough to take the company into the 22nd century.
Microsoft was always a very clever company, Ballmer simply throttled it. They have some really amazing engineers! Over the past year I have been trying to convert away from Office and towards Apple's iWork suite. It has NOT been easy, as the business world is still very much Office centric and even minor discrepancies in work product creates inefficiencies.
Like most I downloaded the updated Office for my iPhone and iPad and was surprised at how well it works on these mobile devices. I wasn't too sure what was lacking from the paid subscription version - but that is spelled out nicely in this article:
In the end not too much unless you are enterprise centric. However for folks that use Google Doc's there are some syncing issues, and true collaboration syncing (change once, display everywhere to others working on the document) is not implemented.
Microsoft is becoming relevant again. If they get the software right, then they have half the problem solved if they want to stay in the hardware space. Competition is a very, very good thing and Apple needs clever companies pushing technology, as much as consumers need it to reduce costs.
I liked it better when DED touted Apple's iWork apps over MS Office, you know, back when Ballmer withheld releasing Office for iPad while simultaneously slamming the iPad as a media consumption device.
That said, I'm over using MS Office on any platform. End the Microsoft hegemony!
Personally, I think SkyDrive was a much better name than OneDrive. I know they did it for branding consistency (though I'm not sure why, as we didn't change anything else to "One") but SkyDrive sounds more...cool.
Microsoft ditched SkyDrive because they were sued by BSkyB, the UK satellite company who took a firm stance on protecting their trademark and brand identity.
Presumably, Microsoft balked at paying whatever BSkyB wanted for use of the SkyDrive name. Apple, by contrast, agreed to pay Cisco undisclosed sums for the use of the iOS and iPhone trademarks.
From a branding perspective, OneDrive does tie in with their OneNote note taking app (available on mobile devices and personal computers).
I'd love to see Apple double down on software improvements. Make their first party iOS apps world class rather than just good enough for the default app. I'd love to see them put Google apps to shame and not give iOS users much incentive to use Google apps.
Not to mention OS X apps ... everything from Apple should be the best. It mostly is, but there are areas to improve for sure.
The rest of their activities outside of search are just subsidized money losers.
It's not quite that simple. All of those other activities contribute data for the core advertising success. Those data make search better than anything else out there, and those data target the ads better than anything else out there. You can't have one without the other. Duckduckgo is fine, as a flat search engine, but Google knows its users well enough to provide better results with less user input on the edge cases, and that really can't be done without historical behavior analysis. I often don't even have to execute a search, and can get my answer just in the suggestions while I'm typing.
Hating it is understandable, but they're not putting out Inbox , Earth, or Android just for brand recognition. There's an interest in providing quality unique experiences so people will use the apps and provide data which Google can leverage.
Is there a way to filter DED articles out of the RSS feed? That would greatly improve things. Or better yet, AI, would you let him go? I thought his articles were good, once. But now I try to avoid them but I still get click baited sometimes.
They didn't change the name for consistency. They chagned the name because SkyNews in the UK threatened to sue Microsoft because they believe SkyDrive infringed on one of their trademarks.
Comments
"... whereas Google is still just an ad company." Exactly!
If that ?Search rumor comes to fruition and looking at the success of Apple Maps, despite the rocky start, in terms of Apple user take up ... and given the dominance of Apple's Mobile web presence ... I'd say a Samsung-esque profit scenario seems quite likely for Google in the not too distant future.
At least Nadella is willing to make changes, and Gates doesnt appear to be stopping him.
It's notable that now that Office is free for the most part, they're preparing an Android version. Which will probably be iffy, despite Microsoft's considerable software talent(yes, it is considerable, superior to Apple's in some cases), due to the craptastic nature of the platform.
re: main article - those of us old enough to remember, harken back to the days when Excel on a Mac was better than Excel on a PC (primarily due to the underlying Windows/DOS conflagration). Maybe Gates is saying 2015 will be "1985 all over again"
It's only notable in that MS has fully embraced subscription licensing. Supporting Android for free is like getting an AOL CD in the mail, low cost to deliver, and if 1% convert and pay for a full office 365 subscription, they get a huge profit.
"... whereas Google is still just an ad company." Exactly!
If that ?Search rumor comes to fruition and looking at the success of Apple Maps, despite the rocky start, in terms of Apple user take up ... and given the dominance of Apple's Mobile web presence ... I'd say a Samsung-esque profit scenario seems quite likely for Google in the not too distant future.
I think you're wrong in that Google does drive some level of innovation and is less limited in how it can garner profit.
Google can compete with Apple on the SW/services side. Samsung cannot. And services (not the HW) is the end game.
Part of Google's evil genius is that they are pushing the envelope in many directions. Not happy with being their own CDN, Google is looking at pulling fiber to get household lockin. Google can support all hardware, Samsung cannot.
And most of all, Google is small and agile (at the top) compared to Samsung. There is less divisional pressure to make a profit. Google is an integrated company, Samsung a comglomerate. Google can 'sacrifice' some profits in the Android space, to ensure a company wide win. Samsung's Division VP have no such strategy, therefore they must compete in their sector and maximize profits, which may, in fact, lessen the global success of their Division.
It was interesting to hear @asymco on his podcast (Critical Path) hypothesize that Samsung may soon make more money per iPhone (due to the chips it's sells to Apple) than per Samsung made phone, and how Samsung's Leadership may react to that. [The key point is the royalties Samsung has to pay to Microsoft, Google, and the fines to Apple make Samsung phones very expensive to make, and racing to the bottom, Samsung may end up making less per phone than it's competitors, to the point where it would be more profitable to just take all the SemiConductor capacity dedicated to Samsung phones and make a Deal with Apple to sole source components for iOS devices].
Google has a much longer view, and a much richer set of services that in the end game look better than just selling commodity mobile hardware (because that's the end game for android phones. 8000 flavors of phone/tablet/wearables all making next to nothing in profits)
Just between the two. They've been going back and forth in terms of greater market cap but recently Microsoft took a $25B lead. Microsoft stock is up 7% the past month and 29% YTD. Google is down 4% in the past month and 2% YTD. Personally I'm more bullish on Microsoft. And my guess is some of the money coming out of Google is going into not just Apple but Microsoft as well.
I'd love to see Apple double down on software improvements. Make their first party iOS apps world class rather than just good enough for the default app. I'd love to see them put Google apps to shame and not give iOS users much incentive to use Google apps.
I think you're wrong in that Google does drive some level of innovation and is less limited in how it can garner profit.
Google can compete with Apple on the SW/services side. Samsung cannot. And services (not the HW) is the end game.
Part of Google's evil genius is that they are pushing the envelope in many directions. Not happy with being their own CDN, Google is looking at pulling fiber to get household lockin. Google can support all hardware, Samsung cannot.
But again, all their profit is in advertising.
I wish I could find a better picture I saw recently that shows the breakdown of sales between Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple, as far as direct/indirect/etc revenue was per company.
The rest of their activities outside of search are just subsidized money losers.
I see Nadella's leadership as safe, not much vision. His vision is the same as most any developer. That's probably why Bill gates wanted him, he knew the Microsoft he made may not survive another large gamble. As much money as they have, they can only throw away so much of it and still have the resources to be a big player in the areas of their choosing. To me, satya is a concession that microsoft lost the bet. They're willing to play nice with Apple, but I think Bill and Ballmer had too much pride to be the face of that concession. I don't see Microsoft grabbing the spotlight from Apple anymore - unless they have a word processor with some amazing feature. /s They're essentially giving up on a mobile OS. Just look at their surface commercials, no longer even comparing it to the iPad. People weren't crazy over side by side apps like they thought. People didn't want their OS to look like a 1990's web page like they thought. I have an office mate who was forced to use Windows 8 for a year now, with no preconceived notions, and she said that after using it for a year, she's positive she doesn't like it. Like she said, it forces her to stay in this environment away from the desktop that feels confined. To me, it looks like they tried to shoehorn the iPads concept onto the desktop. Their ultimate demise was listening to a crowd of pimply teenage followers who were going to praise whatever changes they made instead of the end user. This means that MS missed out on the next big thing in computing. It's funny because they thought that history would repeat itself, and they could just release a copycat product and people would flock to it. The difference is that Apple isn't a company in its infancy anymore. They can play with a giant company - like IBM. They've got the best engineers in the business, and money and experience. Microsoft severely underestimated Apple this time. Now they can't even play catch up and have to reinvent themself as an app maker. With the iPad pro on the horizon, Apples vision of the future is going to eat Microsoft's lunch. iOS is the future of computing.
Who are people here more bullish on Microsoft or Google?
It depends on the timeframe. I'm more bullish on Google for the near term outlook, let's say the next five years. Not that Microsoft has any risk in going out of business, they still turn a good profit.
If we're talking long-term, like fifty, one hundred years, I'd lean more toward Microsoft, but they simply couldn't run their business in fifty years as today. Something major would have to change, like exiting out of the consumer marketplace.
IBM is an example of a company that has successfully exited out of the consumer space, as well as many other technical spaces that seemingly appeared to be core businesses (like medical equipment).
HP is a company that is still struggling to take measures to ensure another fifty years of existence. There have been balky attempts to exit out of the consumer space, get back into it (e.g., short-lived webOS acquisition), etc. At this point, I'm guessing that some of the HP board are regretful that they sent Leo Apotheker packing in 2011 and replaced him with an ineffective Meg Whitman. Today, HP intends on splitting the company in two, one consumer, one enterprise by fall 2015. Now if they had followed Apotheker's course, they would be 3+ years into that migration.
If you asked if Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo would be around in 2114, I'd pick Nintendo. Like IBM, Nintendo is a 100+ year old corporation that has reinvented itself several times.
Despite all the diverse and occasionally interesting dabbling by Google like self-driving cars (still around), Google Wave (defunct), SketchUp (now owned by Trimble), almost all of their revenue comes from online advertising business, primarily their closed-source, proprietary Google AdWords service. I'm not convinced that one-trick pony is good enough to take the company into the 22nd century.
Like most I downloaded the updated Office for my iPhone and iPad and was surprised at how well it works on these mobile devices. I wasn't too sure what was lacking from the paid subscription version - but that is spelled out nicely in this article:
http://www.macworld.com/article/2844476/office-goes-free-on-phones-and-tablets-what-you-get-and-what-you-dont.html
In the end not too much unless you are enterprise centric. However for folks that use Google Doc's there are some syncing issues, and true collaboration syncing (change once, display everywhere to others working on the document) is not implemented.
Microsoft is becoming relevant again. If they get the software right, then they have half the problem solved if they want to stay in the hardware space. Competition is a very, very good thing and Apple needs clever companies pushing technology, as much as consumers need it to reduce costs.
That said, I'm over using MS Office on any platform. End the Microsoft hegemony!
Personally, I think SkyDrive was a much better name than OneDrive. I know they did it for branding consistency (though I'm not sure why, as we didn't change anything else to "One") but SkyDrive sounds more...cool.
Microsoft ditched SkyDrive because they were sued by BSkyB, the UK satellite company who took a firm stance on protecting their trademark and brand identity.
Presumably, Microsoft balked at paying whatever BSkyB wanted for use of the SkyDrive name. Apple, by contrast, agreed to pay Cisco undisclosed sums for the use of the iOS and iPhone trademarks.
From a branding perspective, OneDrive does tie in with their OneNote note taking app (available on mobile devices and personal computers).
Not to mention OS X apps ... everything from Apple should be the best. It mostly is, but there are areas to improve for sure.
As a suite, it is largely irrelevant. Some clerical staff use it, fewer each year. As people work smarter, other tools are replacing Office.
The rest of their activities outside of search are just subsidized money losers.
It's not quite that simple. All of those other activities contribute data for the core advertising success. Those data make search better than anything else out there, and those data target the ads better than anything else out there. You can't have one without the other. Duckduckgo is fine, as a flat search engine, but Google knows its users well enough to provide better results with less user input on the edge cases, and that really can't be done without historical behavior analysis. I often don't even have to execute a search, and can get my answer just in the suggestions while I'm typing.
Hating it is understandable, but they're not putting out Inbox , Earth, or Android just for brand recognition. There's an interest in providing quality unique experiences so people will use the apps and provide data which Google can leverage.
Good to hear.
/rant
They didn't change the name for consistency. They chagned the name because SkyNews in the UK threatened to sue Microsoft because they believe SkyDrive infringed on one of their trademarks.
If microsoft makes apple platforms a priority then people piss and moan and it's immanent death for microsoft.
The lack of intellectual thought and logic around here is disappointing.
Well this is easy ... let's opt for death for Microsoft.
Quote:
This just in:
MS seems to have discovered which mobile side its bread is buttered on...
(probably no film at 11)
MS should just become an iOS and OS X developer and give up wasting their money on all else.
Might just be happening already in the normal course of things, huh?