- Microsoft makes record profits.
- Virgin Galactic going to send people into space for $200,000.
- AT&T says iPhones backing up.
- The MacBook Air not impressive. Not functional enough.
- Best Buy sold digital photo frames laced with a virus.
- Symbian virus spreading.
- Microsoft accused of tweaking search engine results.
Microsoft not passing on profits to shareholders is not a bad thing in light of what is wrong with economies today.
If I were to buy stock I would want to buy stock in a company that is focused on itself than slaved in only pleasing stockholders. I think of Enron and others which come to immediately to mind.
We all seem to cheer an underdog company and them damn them when they achieve success. In Australia they call that the “Tall Poppies Syndrome” gotta cut them down when they get to where you cheered them on to. 😉
Microsoft is not nearly the ‘evil empire’ that Apple is in making a comparison. One only needs to look no farther than the iPhone, iPod and now the Macbook Air. Apple wants to lock you in to Apple when buying these products and does it best to do so.
Cheers
I wish I could make lame software/Vista and milk the peasants for 1.5 Billion a month. Nice gig, if you can get it.
#2 Lou Bix and #3 Pedro –
If MircoSoft makes “lame software / Vista” then how do you explain their success?
Your comments does not make any logical sense.
I am not a Microsoft ‘fanboy’ by no stretch of the imagination but I have no real beef with Microsoft any more than I have with anything I use – cars, electronic goods et al.
I you feel this way about Microsoft in light of the apparent continued success of the company then you must feel the same way about most everything you use in your life and that must be a bitter existence.
Cheers
Well, they do give money to the shareholders, we get a quarterly dividend. Personally I’d love to get 1-5$ a share per quarter like an oil company but I’m realistic about it (and they aren’t the bulk of my holdings anyway.)
The air mac thingy just looks like something for the pretty jetset “cool” crowd. Why else put only an 80 gig in there. The interesting thing to me though is they didn’t include a firewire hookup. Isn’t Apple ALL about the video/picture interfacing? Seems pretty stupid to me. Or perhaps they got a sweet deal with intel for some of the components that just happened to not have firewire support.
hmmm Intel gives us dividends too. Dividends must be a conspiracy.
Jim – Yes you are correct MS does give money to their shareholders. 🙂 The point I was making (or trying to make) is MS does not seem to be slaves to only that. That’s my take anyway.
I forgot about the Zoolanderbook Air thingy lacking a firewire port. I am sure that is solved with a yet another optional dongle one can buy. I vaguely recall some problem regarding using an external HDD – not sure but in either case its obvious the only thing going for the Air thingy it is it does look damn good. Shame about the fact that most users want to do more than just look good especially if money is tight.
Cheers
Although Apple has come up in the world recently in percentage of computer ownership, Microsoft still dominates the roost.
Since aftermarket sales of Vista have been “significantly below projections”, then where did these profits come from? Simple, the OEM channel. Microsoft is charging extortionists pricing to computer manufacturers and they have to pay because there is no other game in town.
Steve Jobs is in Idiot. Yea, he brought us the Iphone, Imac, and Ipod, but in the big picture he is a moron for fanatically holding onto selling his OS married to his proprietary hardware. Apple RIGHT NOW has the software package and the potential pricing to knock Microsoft down for the count. An excellent OS, Office Package, Video Editing, XP Emulator…, the whole thing!
Microsoft is making at least 10 times more money than Apple ever will on software alone. Apple may never be in a better position to move than it is in now.
Except for their big roadblock – Jobs.
#7 Ah_Yea Microsoft is charging extortionists pricing to computer manufacturers and they have to pay because there is no other game in town.
Maybe but there are many PCs on offer Linux. While Linux does not offer much the same as Windows or OS X it does allow the purchase of a PC without paying for an OS thus leaving the buyer to make their own choice of what to use say XP or Vista.
Oddly it seems to me that MS might have left the back door open for easy Vista piracy. Why?
“Since aftermarket sales of Vista have been “significantly below projections”
So Vista finds itself on more PCs so it can get a user base similar to how Windows 3.11 (and Office) piracy helped pave the way for Windows to be the PC “standard”. WTF? :/
Vista installs without a key with three days grace to activate it. If you stop Vista’s activation timers then you never have to activate it and Microsoft WGA is happy. Doing that is illegal and should not be advocated and not easy to do – but it is being done.
“And that’s the way it is…”
Cheers
Oh_Yea – Apple is in the Hardware business not Software business that is a fundamental difference between Apple and MS – Apple wants to sell you a computer.
It is a legal minefield to install Apple OS X on a non Apple computer. Apple would never allow it.
Microsoft Windows is not tied to any specific hardware brand – even Apple. If Apple Mac users start buying Windows Microsoft would be quite happy about it.
Steve Jobs is running along a knife’s edge in letting Windows install on Macs as Mac users might get to thinking “WTF, why pay so much money for a Mac? Hell a PC is cheaper and works just as well if not more up to date and better?”
Cheers
TIHZ_HO Yes, exactly! We all know when Microsoft started out, they turned the other way when it came to piracy and it was a very smart move. As people adopted the Microsoft OS, businesses and new computer users demanded the OS be installed on their systems. This is how Microsoft made the bulk of their money. I like Linux and have installed a number of Mandrake copies on relatives systems where they just needed to do the basics. Highly Recommended.
Returning to my prior assertion, Microsoft has placed itself in a vulnerable position by releasing Vista before it was ready and at a price which allows lean and mean competition to come and eat Microsoft’s lunch. Apple, are you listening?
By the way, I think I’ll be going back to China in mid March. I can’t wait!
Hi TIHZ_HO, missed your last comment,
I also agree that Apple is running a risk by allowing Microsoft to run on their hardware, but it’s probably an unavoidable risk given that people who want to go to Apple may have programs that run only on XP or Vista, which they need to keep -(myself included).
The big picture is just as you stated. Microsoft is in the business of selling software while Apple is in the business of selling hardware. Now if the Apple OS, with all the extra-value bells and whistles (such as ibook, ilife, etc) sold as a complete package for ~$75 OEM and ~ $200 retail with the retail allowing you to install it on any Intel system you want, then I doubt that Microsoft could compete pricewise because they have become an overbloated corporation with too much overhead. Microsoft is the new IBM.
But for some insane reason Jobs is married to a loosing proposition (selling computer hardware) and cannot get his head around doing what to others is obvious -selling software!
Ah_Yea – Welcome back!
Well another problem with Apple selling their OS X for non-Apple boxes (PC Windows users) is it lacks productivity Windows users take for granted – like file management for one (Unless this has been addressed in Leopard service pack which one pays for BTW).
The one productivity feature of Windows Explorer I live by but is lacking in OS X Macintosh Finder is:
Mac users swear blind that the Macintosh Finder is just as good as Windows Explorer. Yet even after five major releases of Mac OS X, it lacks many features that Windows power users take for granted… using cut and paste to move files around, and renaming files from within a file requester. …if you actually want to manipulate files then Windows Explorer wins hands down.
http://tinyurl.com/2pkw4j
Cheers
Yea, Windows Explorer is nice. I live with copy and paste! In my opinion the best Explorer was included with Win3.1, when you could work between multiple directories in the same window. Ah, the good ol’ days!
I also like Linux in all it flavors, I just don’t fill the bill for most people just yet.
Nonetheless, Apple could increase it’s market share immensely if they capitalized on Microsoft’s Vista blunders. OS X problems can be solved very easily, but market opportunity comes very rarely.
Good talking to you! Gotta go for now.
Oh yeah, John, btw, you complain a lot about empty news days — how about doing some investigative journalism (yeah I know, what is THAT) about bot-net and spam-net owners. I monitor my catch-all account for my domain and there can be as many as 200 a DAY popping in, usually duplicates. The standard answer is always that they make their money by just a few percentage points of people ‘touching’ their ads… but HOW exactly?
There can’t be REAL advertisers actually using these folks, most of the ads are infantile — not even attempting to be anything more than the spam they are.
I’d love to know WHERE the sources of “money” are coming from for these people to be willing to do this. Not to mention, what exactly do the people supposedly PURCHASING this kind of advert GET?
This really smacks, to me, of governments attempting to infiltrate and undermine infrastructure and of “dead” botnets that just keep working even though their owners are long gone.
It would be great to see some serious journalistic efforts to find out about this stuff and actually get into the heads of people that do it, rather than the continual re-spouting of the ‘somebody is making money somewhere’ lines.
that 1.5 billion a month is a testament of the work and effort that the company execs and technical staff have put into their product…
It is also amazing that microsoft has been able to maintain such success in light of the present economic backdrop and the legal challenges that it continues to face in the European market.
PC Card??
Apple hasn’t put PC cards in their laptops since the PPC versions like 3 years ago. The MacBook line has never had an expansion port and only the MacBook Pros suppport expansion. I like your shows and columns and stuff but if you’re gonna be a pundit at least google something before you spout on about it. After all, you’re a pundit and you’re supposed to tell us what to think right?
All I can think of about the Macbook Air is that with all the Intel/AMD processors being mini furnaces now, my guess is that it’s probably using a shitty downgraded celeron to keep it from overheating.
People forget that Microsoft also has the XBOX 360 and other products besides Vista. And people forget that Halo sold millions upon millions after it’s release. Microsoft made tons of money off of that as well.
Windows is a big thing for Microsoft, but saying they are only a software company these days is kind of missing the point. Large corporations buy out other companies and start expanding their offerings. Business software and database systems also play a role into their earnings. So it’s not all about Vista, even though that does play a major part.
I’d say Vista wasn’t as impressive as they’d hoped, but then again, when a video game that’s only available on the XBOX outsells every other video game that came out, I’d say you probably made a lot of money off of that on top of the ‘Software’ they make.