Posted on 07/28/2010 10:40:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's easy to bash Microsoft.
From its CEO, to its massively popular operating system, the company does not exude the cool, hip style of Apple. Nor does it exude the wide-eyed optimism or Google.
For these reasons, and others, Microsoft is regularly bashed by the tech-set who drool over Apple and Google.
It's not just the tech scene. Wall Street is cool to Microsoft. After crushing earnings, Microsoft's stock is underperforming the market.
Well instead of piling on, we're going the other way. Of all the major tech companies out there, Microsoft is one of the most successfully diversified, exciting companies going.
It has two major cash cows, but it's also grown 8 billion dollar businesses in the last decade. Does anyone think Google, or even Apple, could do that?
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
As the need for an OS disappears into the sunset .......
How many people say I have to sit down at Windows and get some work done, vs how many say I wonder how quick the browser loads.
Windows XP is still a great OS, and I hear Win7 is even better than XP, so that is my praise for MS.
That’s all I got.
THE REASONS :
1) The servers and tools division is now a $15 billion business
All the attention on Microsoft is focused on its two big cash cows, Windows and Office, but its servers and tools business is also impressive. For the 2010 fiscal year the division did $15 billion in sales and $5.5 billion in operating income. That’s just $3 billion less in revenue than Windows, and about half the operating income
2) It’s not just the server business, Microsoft has 11 billion dollar businesses
Here’s something very few companies can say. Microsoft has 11 billion dollar revenue business lines. Todd Bishop at TechFlash rounded them all up:
Windows
Office
Servers
Xbox
SQL Server
System Center
Unified Communications (Exchange)
SharePoint
Developer Tools (Visual Studio)
Dynamics (ERP & CRM)
Online Advertising (display & search)
3) Xbox and Xbox Live are a big money makers now
One current Microsoftie boasted about the success of Xbox Live to us. For the twelve months ended June 30, 2010, operating income in the Entertainment and Devices division, where Xbox resides, is $679 million. That’s really good. And it could get better. Microsoft’s Xbox Live sales probably topped $1 billion. And analysts think the Xbox motion system, Kinect could drum up $1 billion in sales.
Further, Xbox gives Microsoft entry to the living room. This is something Apple and Google have not yet pulled off. Google TV and Apple TV are attempts to crack the market.
4) Windows is expected to keep blowing the doors off
After Microsoft’s big earnings crush last week, Jefferies analyst Katherine Egbert called the company a buy and said she expects double digit growth for the Windows franchise for the next two years
5) Bing is making Google look bad
We think Bing is toast. We also think Microsoft needs to stop burning so much cash online. We don’t think Bing is going to take significant share from Google.
BUT! We think Bing has impressively forced Google’s hand repeatedly. The most embarrassingly obvious move was when Google added Bing-like backgrounds to its main Google.com search page. Google also quickly announced Twitter integration after Bing, and redesigned its layout to steal some flair from Bing, too.
6) Microsoft treats its employees amazingly
We asked one ex-Microsoftie what the company does well. Here’s the response. Treat this as an anecdote, since we didn’t bother getting Google to confirm or deny (assumed Google would deny):
“They do give employees great benefits. I know of a specific incident where some ex-MSFTs left MS to work at google Seattle and they complained to Eric Schmidt that Google’s benefits (real benefits like medical, dental, eye) were way behind MSFT. When Eric went back to look at the the cost of matching MSFT in Seattle, he decided against it since it would have increased their Seattle office insurance costs by $2 million. This is something that is much overlooked by the press. Google may give free lunches, but at MSFT, I never had to pay out of pocket for anything (medical, prescription, etc).”
7) Microsoft is loaded with really smart people and big talents
Any time we’ve talked to anyone about Microsoft inside, outside, former, or current, we’ve always heard the place is filled with smart, talented people. Some of them might be trapped due to the internal politics of the place, but it’s definitely a positive.
The company also makes training people a priority according to one ex-employee, and “They also allow employees to move around into different groups and they do not have that ‘engineer vs. the other employees’ mentality that Google has. “
8) Microsoft is about to get back into the phone business
Windows Phone 7 looks like it’s pretty good. Better than the iPhone? Better than Android? Early reviews say no and no. But, Microsoft’s phone is innovative, it’s not just a rip of the iOS format. And with Xbox Live, Office, and Zune integration, Microsoft could have a really neat all-in-one package on its hands that rivals Apple and Google.
The trick here is that Microsoft is playing comeback kid, and it’s not going to be a big cash cow because the price it can charge for its software is pretty low. So, it’s an exciting product, but it’s not clear how exciting a business it will be.
9) There’s 1.1 billion people using Microsoft products. That’s one in 6 people on this planet.
Microsoft apologists have lately tried to say that Microsoft is a great enterprise company, but not so much a consumer company. A Microsoft rep dismisses that. He points out Microsoft has over 1.1 billion Windows users which is more than Apple and Google combined. Not to mention there’s plenty of Xbox and Bing users.
10) Revenue is growing, profits are growing, and it has a pile of cash
Finally, the most impressive thing about Microsoft is its fortress of a balance sheet. Operating income is growing, revenue is growing, and then there’s its massive pile of cash
So, why is the stock stuck in neutral? And why does everyone want Ballmer canned?
Here’s the thing. We can talk about how many things Microsoft is doing right until we’re blue in the face. The problem is Microsoft is stuck in a cloudy position. And that’s giving the haters plenty of fuel:
In mobile, even if it’s successful, it will not generate big sales or profits.
Windows and Office are under attack from Google and Apple. They look like they’ll be fine for now, but in five years, who knows. That’s enough doubt to keep investors weary.
It insists on burning BILLIONS on a foolish pursuit of search that probably won’t ever pay off.
The company has over-hired. There’s no reason to have 90,000+ employees. It’s clogging up the works.
Ballmer has put the wrong people in charge of divisions, says an ex-Microsoftie.
A lot of the hatred towards MS is based on class envy and successful corporation hatred that our media so much loves to nurture.
Qoted without comment...
The servers and tools division is now a $15 billion business
It’s not just the server business, Microsoft has 11 billion dollar businesses
Xbox and Xbox Live are a big money makers now
Windows is expected to keep blowing the doors off
Bing is making Google look bad
Microsoft treats its employees amazingly
Microsoft is loaded with really smart people and big talents
Microsoft is about to get back into the phone business
Revenue is growing, profits are growing, and it has a pile of cash
How many people EVER said they needed to sit down at Windows to get work done? That’s just not how people talk. And don’t believe the myth that the need for an OS is disappearing, the cloud ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, and you still need something to connect the browser to the hardware, you might not NOTICE the OS but it’s there.
Bill Gates should be in prison for the rest of his life and all of his wealth redistributed to all of us schmucks who have bought his products.
You summed it up perfectly. Microsoft runs as a business should run, not as a philanthropic institution (go figure, Bill Gates runs one of his own full time) and is a success. They’ve succeeded in creating software that computer illiterates like me can use with no problems and has succeed in providing billions of jobs for people with a fat salary and benefits.
It helps people in the politically incorrect way. It helps people who wish to help themselves. People who work hard, get good job skills, and contribute.
Yes that is true, hatred for MS from those that were put out of business by their predation — but for me it is not necessary to lug around either the cost nor the lack of performance as more devices get weaker and smaller. You pay for all the unused capability.
These days email and browser do most of what many need. The only application left that I use that needs more is Quicken, but even they are going online.
And this is where google is headed with their chrome OS.
Even HP is switching to Palm for their nettops and tablet OS.
And then there is free Linux like Ubuntu 10.4 if you really need a full featured OS. But to most it’s just an encumbrance.
Diehard MS user here. Loved XP Pro, and now I'm using Windows 7. So far, so good. Working in media & graphic design, there's been nothing I can't do that my brother in law with his Apple. Course, he gets to pay a lot more for repairs. Plus, it's nice knowing I can write my own applications and not have to bow before the Apple gods to deem them relevant.
I think my tagline says it best.
Hey, any company that could produce a Zune can’t be all bad.
;)
It is undeniable that most people just use the browser and email for daily work. And that is all the support from the “OS” they need, the rest of the crap just gets in the way. As more of the smart phones get sold, does anybody know what they are running under the hood anymore? And when does the smart phone become the computer? Soon methinks. And who wants to burden their smart phone with windows ....
So far MS has been able to fool people into thinking they need Windows, but they really don’t. When HP ships their pads and net-tops with Palm software on-board, the end will begin.
It’s not a myth, nobody needs an OS anymore. They want to do something.
Didn’t the feds just sign up for the cloud that no one uses?
I never “bash” MicroSoft. But I still prefer to use Linux.
Built my first PC in 1982. Ran TRSDOS, NEWDOS80, MSDOS, Windows 3.0, 95, 98 and XP. Spent many years using IBM AS400’s.
Put together my first Linux box about 15 years ago. First version was a UMSDOS version of Slackware. Then my first GUI Linux was running Redhat 5.0, then Mandrake and other distributions. Found them all, stable, secure, and efficient. They are more simple because of the lack of need for licensing control software.
There are still a few places that lack comparable Linux apps. Mostly CAD and Publishing programs. Otherwise I would never boot anything except Linux.
And I am not a Leftie by any measure. I simply like efficiency. I love XFCE GUI.
“No I bash them because their OS has more security holes than a colander.”
Misconception, a properly patch XP or Win 7 box is actually a very secure computer.
Just because they don’t know what the OS is doesn’t mean it’s not there and isn’t necessary. The smart phone will never become the computer, they’re too small for real work. Try typing or even reading a 30 page document on your smart phone.
There’s still going to be an OS under that Palm software.
No it’s a myth, you might not need to know how to tweak your OS, but OSes do a lot more than what users think it does. All interaction with the hardware, all output and all input, come from the OS.
I didn’t say no one uses the cloud. I said they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Clouds sound great all the way until you lose your connection and that document you absolutely have to see to do your work is gone, not to mention what happens when that cloud company ceases to exist. Local copies will always be more stable and useful than clouds. Look at the problems WordPress has had lately, imagine if your vital documents were there instead of on your computer and you needed them that day to close a million dollar sale, oops, too bad. The cloud is nothing more than trying to bring back the dumb terminal, there’s a reason computing moved away from the dumb terminal.
Nope it is Vista and it was real buggy. Worse than ME , I wanted to go Mac( just kidding) but I was sorry I didn't just get an XP like my old one, when I got this computer. They just kept sending updates, and now it works great.
Politics, religion, and operating systems are all the same subject.
Everything has a use, but as computers, ie smart phone usage accelerates, desktop usage goes down. OSes shed function and must get lighter weight and respond to user inputs fast.
I built my first computer before there was a PC ... We first did it with discrete components, yes it took lots of cabinetry, and then used the 4004 ... then the 8080 ... And now well it’s too much trouble to build.
In a few years, I doubt there will be many desktops being sold. Have you looked in Best Buy lately? Almost all lot-tops and smart phones. People want to do things ... The next big step, away from laptops, appliance computing on the go, is on the horizon.
Try yodlee.com
OS were originally designed as general purpose. I know I was there when UNIX was born. And general purpose brings baggage that is not necessary in the age of mega-chips and specialization.
The next stage is staring us in the face ... Everybody I meet has a smart phone and likely a kindle, or laptop. I don’t find lap tops generally useful for full-time work and much prefer a desktop to do real work. But then again I am not the mass market. And there is the rub, the smart phone for better or worse has taken the market by storm. Just look at what Apple iPhone and iPad sales are doing compared to their desktops and laptops.
So while writing the book may require more resources, Kindle has shown reading it is cheap and easy. Kindle books on Amazon has already outsold regular books.
Desktops are near gone at Best Buy, and laptops have become standard. But everybody is now working on the next generations of iPad knock offs. Apple sales of iPhones is looking to top 100 million soon.
This Christmas may be the one ...
Hey servers will still need OSes, just not the average mass market Joe, they have already switched to laptops sometime ago and are moving on ....
Think the nightmare you would have managing large numbers of users, and then the cloud becomes very attractive.
“Misconception, a properly patch XP or Win 7 box is actually a very secure computer.”
That’s the problem. Those computers are no more secure than the users that use them. I did some consulting work for a business whose computers were acting slow and “funny”. Every computer there ran Windows XP but nothing had been kept up to date, including the antivirus programs. Every last one of them had multiple viruses, spyware and adware. Most Windows users are not technical and are not mindful enough of security and what I found is probably very typical outside of corporations with active IT departments.
OSes provide integration between the hardware and the software. They might have other tools for resource management but those are really applications. The actual OS itself is the layer between hardware and application, and that will never go away.
The smart phone has taken the phone market by storm. It is not a desktop replacement, it’s not good at anything desktops are actually needed for. The screen is too small for long term working, the keyboard is too small for long term working, the memory and storage are too small for large scale functionality. Actually iPhone and iPad sales are negligible compared to desktops and laptops.
Kindle is only outselling hardbacks, which account for about 5% of book sales.
Windows is on 1.1 BILLION machines. 100 million iPhones still puts them 91% of the market away from taking over.
EVERYTHING needs OSes, read what I said. Your precious smart phones ALL have OSes. 4.0 of the iPhone OS came out at the same time as thenew hardware, and can be applied to previous versions of the hardware. Average mass market Joe might not KNOW about the OS, but there’s still an OS on every single device he’s using, PC, smart phone, DVR, Garmin, laptops, Kindle. They all have OSes.
You still have to manage large numbers of users. Nothing really changes with the cloud, they all still have machines that will be configured and updated. The only difference is that when something happens to the company’s network those machines become completely useless. In the current world when the internet connection fails productivity goes up because people lose a major method of screwing around. In a cloud world when the internet connection fails productivity ends.
For businesses, there's a full range of offerings. Hosted email is the most popular but it's possible to use Microsoft Office tools completely on the web as well. Companies can deploy applications on the web via Azure and even some or all of their computing infrastructure in managed datacenters. Major enterprises have already signed up to do just that.
For consumers, they can use the new and improved Hotmail or Live email and even create their own domain name for free. Your favorite Office applications are also available as web applications.
While Google gives you a their cloud or nothing proposition, Microsoft allows business and individuals to chose where they want to use their applications and where they want to store their data. Companies can even deploy a Microsoft based cloud infrastructure within their firewall and integrate their in-house datacenter with a Microsoft or partner (think HP/Dell/IBM/Accenture/Etc) datacenter.
Here's some links to the above:
Microsoft On-line offerings for business: http://www.microsoft.com/online/
Microsoft Infrastructure and Development for the cloud: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/
Microsoft Office in the cloud for consumers: http://www.officelive.com
I don’t own a smart phone, don’t want to talk on my computer ... But I don’t buy them other people do.
Yes, but I remember when the same was said about the PC. It’s too small, the processor is way too tiny, the processor couldn’t do anything blah blah blah ... it’s not good for nothing real computers do ... and then times changed.
Who needs quad core when one core is hardly ever maxed out. Times change. Nowadays most computers do not take advantage of the power they have.
So long old friend but your days are numbered as the mass market darling you once were. But if I wanted an OS, why would I buy one? Most of the MS sales are from the Lappy market where windows comes preloaded. There is a reason investors are thinking MS is a has been stock — As the ‘pads’ take over.
FU Jay Yarrow.
Microsoft destroyed my career by breaking the law. And their products are inferior.
“As the need for an OS disappears into the sunset .......”
OK I’ll bite... so if you don’t have an OS running locally, how will computer users do any of the following:
1. Create home movies
2. Photo Processing using Photoshop
3. Programming in the language of your choice
4. Rip DVDs, store files on an HTPC
5. Play PC games
6. Store sensitive data locally, on an encrypted drive
The list goes on and on.
“That’s the problem. Those computers are no more secure than the users that use them. “
Thats true for any computer.
Whats Vista? Never used it as it didn’t make it through QA.
XP SP3 is still secure if properly patched. Win 7 is obviously the new OS and so far has been extremely stable.
No , I dislike them because the company was founded on a fraud perpetrated on IBM and that a few years after that they purposely delayed completion of a version of OS/2 for IBM while they rolled out their newest O/S .. That and Gates had a habit of stealing entire product lines , bankrupting the creators of the products by incorporating others peoples work into windows and then throwing the rightful owners a few bones when MSFT inevitably lost in court.
Really and whats you computer going to run on, the "Ether" (Over the ethernet)?...So call Cloud computing nor browser based computing does not replace an OS on the local system...It just changes the location of the resource the OS on the local system is calling
1) The servers and tools division is now a $15 billion business
True, Microsoft has come a LONG way in the last decade. Their server platforms and tools are now pretty good. There are still some headaches, but nothing's perfect.
3) Xbox and Xbox Live are a big money makers now
Good, then maybe you can cut the costs for us. But big money makers = continued platform support, so that's good. And the quality control and defective design issues are long solved, which makes the Xbox a good buy now.
4) Windows is expected to keep blowing the doors off
Yep, After almost a decade of trying, Microsoft finally got a worthy successor to XP, and one that's almost as good as its target, OS X. Microsoft needs to remember to lead a moving target, not shoot at where it is now.
5) Bing is making Google look bad
Ain't competition great?
8) Microsoft is about to get back into the phone business
Please, no, unless it's worlds better than before.
6) Microsoft treats its employees amazingly
As an aside, this is true as long as you're actually a full employee, which isn't so easy. Microsoft loves to use and abuse temps though.
For the most part they are following google’s lead, stripping all the junk out of Linux. Have you tried Ubuntu netbook remix? It’s the general purpose OS like windows which is dying off.
That's my problem. I notice Windows far too much. On a Windows system I spend too much overhead time dealing with the OS itself. Conversely, OS X is practically invisible to me. I work with my documents and apps, and the OS sits quietly behind, helping it all happen. The extra abilities the OS brings are seamless. As a long-time Windows user, I love it. Going back to Windows slows me down.
The Mac was the first computer conceived to be a consumer computing appliance. 20+ years later Apple finally starts to make it happen with the iPhone then iPad.
Good, because I wouldn't trust it with Microsoft. These are people who think it's okay to upgrade a SAN infrastructure without having a backup. T-Mobile customers were pissed!
Yep, Apple was the first, now the chips have finally caught up with the hype. Near everyone is coming up with pads and smart phones. This Christmas should be a keeper, that is if the government still allows people to buy stuff.
“Bill Gates should be in prison for the rest of his life and all of his wealth redistributed to all of us schmucks who have bought his products.”
Well, if you spent that much money continuously on his products as to need the money back, that makes you the idiot that deserves to be taken advantage of.
“Microsoft destroyed my career by breaking the law. “
You’ve got to be a complete idiot to have a career that a single company can destroy. No single company created me, no single company can destroy me.
Power users will always want PC's. I spent the last 5-1/2 years creating and maintaining a 3,000 page distributor catalog and the complementary website. I batch processed the images for conversion (at one point over 80,000 images for the 2 companies using the system. + thumbnails.) All data for the catalog sections and the company promotions were scripted from an AS400 database to my PC. Then it was organized in Access and into Excel, exported as a tab delimited text file and imported into Quark using Xdata (or Xtags). Anything that scripts image composition or batch processes images requires extreme resources.
That’s what many means. I still will have one as well.
But the mass market has said goodbye.
All on the following are not required to be part of the OS to be and OS ...DOS was and OS (Disk "OS") and did none of the below ...
1. Create home movies
2. Photo Processing using Photoshop
3. Programming in the language of your choice
4. Rip DVDs, store files on an HTPC
5. Play PC games
6. Store sensitive data locally, on an encrypted drive
Stripping out services in an OS does not mean it no longer an OS and the fact that an OS can be slim down and services removed does not mean you no longer need an OS...
The bootstrap loader is going to load something that is an minimum OS to get at a least basic I/O and user interface up
Ever a bootstrap loader in a diskless system booting over the network is still loading an OS
And due to local disk space being cheap and fast vs loading everyone over the WAN.. the local OS (even if the world go to free Linux like OS's) will always have most daily services built in to it.
(As an Network engineer it nuts to think or trust the wire to total replace local storage)
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