MS still has plenty of business. As a Linux user, I know for a fact that there are plenty of people who will keep paying the license fees and other MS BS. Linux is just too complicated for most of the people. Microsoft is made for the average moron and there are plenty of them. Maybe it will be a slow bleed, maybe they'll find a new line of business, who knows? I'm not gonna go short MSFT, that's for sure.
If MSFT were not a monopoly, the stock would be at five. I thought the Baron's article this past weekend on MSFT was pretty good. nitro
the fact is that MS takes away trouble from the private user. the fact is that they are not an innovative company. many of their concepts are stolen, a couple of them from apple. some from others. BUT MS was always better in getting to the private customer. They never had a superior product but always a more broad vision on the market. THIS is the strength of MS. If you try to nail them on technology - no big deal. Talk to any IT guy who worked on different platforms and he will most likely agree. But that has neer been and will never be MS strength's. Linux nor anyone else will be able to get into the big game until they are doing text processing better than Word, spreadsheets better than Excel, presentation better than Powerpoint, and surfing better than explorer. Plus having something innovative that we all want. A combination of Linux Technology and Apple Surface could make it ... though apple is already unix-based. I work on Apple and MS. Ever tried a Mac? Feeeels different. Very different. Much better. In front of a PC you feel like a client in front of a Mac you are a human being. Will Apple challenge MS? They try but their vision is different. They want to be good and innvoative. MS wants to be broad. Different mission. Does the smarter trader win or the more hungry one? I think any monopoly will break in teh end. Look at IBM. Invincible twenty years ago. Lost substantial ground in the meantime. In two five or ten years, MS will face the same faith. Young company breaking in their territory almost overnight. Is the time ready for that? I doubt. Though I think shorting MS naked is not a great trade, one could consider buying a basket of small software shops and sell MS against it. peace
BTW it is so easy to dislike MS. They are definitely not a charming company. Nevertheless while I write this I have a spread sheet in the backgrond doing some things. Excel rocks! most probably other software of that kind rocks as well, but this is the one I use. Having said that I find THE DIAGRAM FUNCTIONS IN EXCEL STUPID AND NARROW MINDED AND UNINOVATIVE AND ... AND ... ARRGHH! I DON'T GET IT: IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO GET SOME OF THEIR CROWD OF PROGRAMMERS TO DO THIS BETTER!!!! . . . peace
I really cant argue with you: you clearly have little or no experience in the technology industry, and clearly have never developed large mission critical systems that run within UNIX and MS environments, nor do you have experience in corporate fianancials analysis. Your argument is simply the rantings of an uninformed person. My companies build large mission critical systems for UNIX and Microsoft systems and I talk regularly with major technology company CEO's. You dont know what you are talking about .....
I dont market my business here: Thus I dont talk in detail about what we do .... I also dont attempt to influence the trading direction of any issues in which my trading operation might participate. When I say in some of my posts that I have many years of experience in the financial markets and in the technology industry you can depend upon it .....
MSFT software STINKS for mission critical software [not that I consider Financial Firms to be much of a gauge of programming genius.] When I did this stuff for a living [granted, four years ago] all the major Financial Firms used Unix based servers. They used Windows for the front end because of things like Excel and the fact that there was no alternative to the desktop back then. Today, Unix is making headway even into the desktop . If MSFT were not a monopoly, the stock would be at five [I am being generous.] nitro
It is probably not a good idea to underestimate Microsoft... if you have noticed, they respond rapidly to competition. Also, the majority of UNIX software is rewritten to run on Windows, but not usually the other way around. Linux has to catch up with a better desktop GUI... by then, there should be better technology
Yes, the Monopoly on the desktop gives them a huge advantage. Yes, four years is an eternity: Windows NT 4.x was unsuitable for major systems - still some people insisted in using it on the server side. Windows 2000 and 2003 and their integrated server suite is another story. No, I disagree that Unix is making major headway on the desktop - the numbers just dont support that argument. There is an increase in defectors to Unix desktops but most major corporations are paying the license fees and keeping their MS desktop infrastructure. Some small and midsize companies are dumping MS and moving to Linux and their variants on the desktop. IMHO these are precisely the companies that should usually not do this: large companies typically have more expertise available to handle UNIX and LINUX systems whereas small operations with less complicated systems receive more benefit from the out of the box admin and application support available on MS systems - it typically outweighs the license fees.