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[Vanillalite]

Again, the problem is growth. What is the value in them retaining the marketshare in the desktop OS market if that market is going to shrink over time and be replaced by a tablet market for which they still have no product to compete...and the mobile phone market in which they are struggling mightily to compete.

They need some real growth. Maintaining what they have isn't enough.


understood. Is AAC Apple's alone? I'm not familiar.


I only pointed them out because they represented the crux of the anti-trust suit.

MS has has more copies of Windows out in the hands of consumers than ever before. That market IS still growing mainly in the new up and coming countries like Brazil, China, India etc..., but that isn't even my beef.

I have a greater general stock market beef that it's not about profit, and not even about growth. It's all about perceived growth opportunities. They could give a fuck 90% of the time if a company is just in a stable market making stable cash.

I get it's about growth. I don't even mind that it is to an extent. Problem is that seems to be all it's about these days.

 

[numble]

MS has has more copies of Windows out in the hands of consumers than ever before. That market IS still growing mainly in the new up and coming countries like Brazil, China, India etc..., but that isn't even my beef.

I have a greater general stock market beef that it's not about profit, and not even about growth. It's all about perceived growth opportunities. They could give a fuck 90% of the time if a company is just in a stable market making stable cash.

I get it's about growth. I don't even mind that it is to an extent. Problem is that seems to be all it's about these days.

But that's what investment is about. The expected growth already caused a rise in stock price a long time ago. People expected that more people would buy Windows as there were more computers in developing countries. That probably accounted for a stock jump in the very beginning.

Why shouldn't investment be about growth? Do you put your money in a savings account that triples every 10 years, or one that gives you 5x? If two guys come to your door and ask you to invest, do you invest in the company that had 8x growth or 2x growth in the last 10 years?

If you want stability, you put your money in a low return treasury bond or a blue chip stock, which Microsoft may be becoming.

 

[bionic77]

After billions they have put in WP7 development, it still sells less than Windows Mobile in most recently reports. I have to say I enjoy the slow motion train wreck of the MS mobile devision.

Here I will predict the next stage of the MS mobile failure:By the end of this year, Mango/7.1 will be released, it's competent update but the devices still sell like Zune (i.e. shit); Nokia is being purchase by Microsoft around the same time, however, all its mid-end Symbian phone sells will be gabbled up by mid-end android phones and iPhone mini.

I shell enjoy more bickering of the MS stock holders.

I would love to read a book about what Ballmer was doing while RIM, Apple and now Google came in and stole the entire smartphone market from under them. I would also love to see what happened since they found about the iPad.

 

[venne]

Why shouldn't investment be about growth? Do you put your money in a savings account that triples every 10 years, or one that gives you 5x? If two guys come to your door and ask you to invest, do you invest in the company that had 8x growth or 2x growth in the last 10 years?

Depends on the company and the price.

I'd never have invested in Microsoft in 2000 because it was valued too highly. Similarly, I wouldn't buy Amazon at today's valuations. A >80 P/E ratio on a corporation that already has a $88 billion dollar market cap is to hot for me to even think about touching.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

It's time for Bill Gates to come back to Microsoft.

This has not been Steve Ballmer's week. Well, it hasn't really been his half-decade, but it's really not been his week: first, long-time industry stalwart IBM takes Microsoft's place behind Apple as the second most valuable technology company, and now he's got the technoscenti and an increasing number of analysts ( www.reuters.com /arti... ) and investors ( brooksreview.net /201... ) calling for his head on a pike.

I've long seen it as a foregone conclusion that Ballmer isn't the guy to be running what was until quite recently the world's preeminent technology company. I don't think many would shed a tear if Microsoft's board put to an end what I like to call Ballmer's "reign of error," but the more pressing question is: who should replace him?

I think we all know damn well who -- but I'm not so sure he's available. Yet.

Someone recently asked me what it was like meeting Bill Gates, who I interviewed a few times back at Engadget. I said, I know it sounds like a cliché, but it is very easy, when you sit down with one, to tell that you're talking to a genius. As soon as Bill opens his mouth, you think: this person is on a different level than the rest of us. It can be kind of intimidating, but it can also be a little hypnotic if you let yourself get pulled into his vision. Yes, believe it or not, Bill Gates has his own Reality Distortion Field (and I mean that as a high compliment).

Things wouldn't turn around immediately, and we'd need to keep this in mind. Microsoft has forgotten how to lead the way, and the company has forgotten how to do more with less. In matters of creating truly great products, there are signs of life, but the folks behind them are swimming upstream.

That focus on products can't be understated, and Bill is -- admittedly -- not the most elegant product designer. In his infamous 2007 joint interview with Steve Jobs, Bill confessed that Jobs always understood thoughtful product design in ways he did not: "Well, I’d give a lot to have Steve’s taste. ... The way he does things is just different and, you know, I think it’s magical."

There's taste, though, and there's cunning -- and it was Bill's killer instinct that made Microsoft the undisputed winner of the first wave of personal computing. And with each passing quarter, it's becoming increasingly clear that in matters of both taste and cunning, Steve Ballmer has neither. Paging Dr. Gates: you're needed in the ER.

If the narrative I'm stringing together here is starting to sounds a little familiar, it is. We all know the legend of a certain founding visionary who comes home to the company for their second act.

I'm not saying Bill's going to leave his new gig as the world's greatest living philanthropist with aplomb, but the multi-billion dollar wheels at The Gates Foundation have been set in motion -- and lest we all forget, the Foundation's endowment is tied directly to Microsoft's long-term success. It may just happen that Bill can help the Foundation more by securing Microsoft's future.

How long can Ballmer's bluster substitute for real leadership, and how much dumb money can Microsoft throw at its "strategy?" Former GM at Microsoft (and now SVP at Google) Vic Gundotra recently said of Microsoft's partnership with Nokia, "Two turkeys don't make an eagle." And he's absolutely right, no amount of Dangers and Skypes and Nokias and RIMs and any other outsized, bloated multi-billion dollar acquisitions can make up for vision at the helm. Bill doesn't have a spotless track record either, but he's a master at making calculated gambles on people and projects that break new ground and define the future.

Jay Allard comes to mind: the visionary who convinced Bill that the internet was the future, and who ultimately created the first online console gaming service and what has become the most compelling new consumer product Microsoft has introduced in the last few decades: the Xbox. The vision behind Xbox? Stay scrappy, ship early, and eat your competitors alive. If Ballmer had it his way, the 360 would just be another case study for "Windows Everywhere," and would probably have more in common with the company's doomed Media Center Extender products than the global success story it's become. (Did I mention Jay recently left Microsoft after Ballmer killed his early foray into tablet computing, the Courier?)

You can't fake a lack of vision forever. When Microsoft is ready to come out from behind the great numbers it puts on the board quarter after quarter with its Windows, Office, and enterprise businesses, and admit there's a very big, very real problem rotting away the roots, hopefully Bill will be there. Until then, we wait.

http://gdgt.com/discuss/it-s-time-for-bill-gates-to-come-back-to-microsoft-dqz/