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Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

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111–120 of 183 posts

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#111
post #2

Simply speaking they actually make more products people like to use. Google essentially has just one, and it’s based on diminishing user privacy to the maximum extent possible. MS collects user data but so do Ubuntu and CentOS... not to the extent Google and FB do it.

> MS collects user data but so do Ubuntu and CentOS... not to the extent Google and FB do it. They're working on it though. I just installed Windows 10 for the first time on a brand new computer I bought. I was shocked to discover that I could not make an account on my own personal machine without "logging in" to a Microsoft service either with an existing or new email address. I looked up tutorials to skip that step…

It can be done, MS just went way out of their way to stop you from doing it (and it is getting worse with each new "upgrade"). The button is there but, IIRC from the last time I had to do it, there's still like 2 more screens you have to go through and one of them tries to trick you.

One imagines Microsoft is intentionally trying to kill their Desktop OS, but has to keep being less and less subtle about it because the alternatives are so bad people are just putting up with it.

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#112
post #3

I'm puzzled why "Proven"s comment is dead? What they wrote seems accurate. There is no reason why this comment should be downvoted, and certainly no reason why the comment should be dead. This is what they wrote: Simply speaking they actually make more products people like to use. Google essentially has just one, and it’s based on diminishing user privacy to the maximum extent possible. MS collects user data but so d…

While anecdotal, I only know one person that still uses Microsoft office, and that is just for Excel. Everyone else is libre office or Google docs. I grew up on office but once they introduced that stupid ribbon menu I ditched it. Apparently I was not the only one.

Sounds like: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1399476

It's partially why there's 1001 food delivery apps meanwhile EHR/EMR software is still a joke.

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really? I have occasionally tried open office and clones for a very long time and "adequate alternative" was the best impression I ever got and far from the worst.

Just to be clear, LibreOffice is not a clone of OpenOffice. It is OpenOffice -- the project was forced to change its name for legal reasons.

It was forked from OpenOffice after Oracle bought OO, and most of the core developers moved to LibreOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#114
As a long term investor, I'm worried with Google. All the bills are paid by ad revenue, a single horse. Then there is this bubble of claims that they have the best engineers and work environment yet this has not produced any other business equivalent to the ad business. Then they have a reputation of creating awesome tools that then get killed in years, enterprise customers don't like this unpredictability. Microsoft on the other hand is the master of supporting old platforms, I've seen some really old apps (from the 90s) run on the latest OS's. Enterprise loves this and that is were the money is. The only clear strength I see on Google is that they are masters of advertising and I see how they sell to developers that there way is the way to go. That is a good HR strength since they will always have a pipe of engineers that want to work for them.

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve installed Windows 10 Pro 1803 on two separate machines in the last month. Both with local accounts.

Could this be a Pro vs Home thing?

It could also be a 1507 versus 1803 thing? The Out-of-Box installer experience in Windows 10 has changed a lot in two-and-a-half years (for the better). Not being able to find the option to use a local account was a common complaint with the 1507 installer (it was there, it was just so de-emphasized to be almost invisible) that was addressed in following OOB versions.

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#117

Kind of interesting to see Microsoft & Amazon 'passing by' Google lately, considering how much more earning power they have than either of them. Even if Amazon didn't spend a dime on R&D the most they could've earned on operating income is ~$26B, if Microsoft zeroed out their R&D they could've had about ~$35B. Meanwhile, if Google decided to go full-profit last year they would've had on the order of $42B.

Clearly some investors don't believe in Google's moonshots.

So far have any worked out?

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#118
post #92

I think most people really don’t understand the wide breadth and the real market of Microsoft as compared to other companies. Just look at these charts of income sources of each company: http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/cotd52602.png Google is literally just Ads whereas Microsoft is very evenly spread. If it lost one area itd be fine in the others. I think people have an exposure bias where they can onl…

Note those charts are FY2016. With the growth of cloud, I suspect those ratios have changed considerably.

Do you have a new chart?

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#119
post #114

As a long term investor, I'm worried with Google. All the bills are paid by ad revenue, a single horse. Then there is this bubble of claims that they have the best engineers and work environment yet this has not produced any other business equivalent to the ad business. Then they have a reputation of creating awesome tools that then get killed in years, enterprise customers don't like this unpredictability. Microsoft…

Microsoft's killing of products and services is actually more prolific than Google. In fact, two more products were just killed today (Groove iOS and Groove Android).

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#120
post #5

I dont really understand this. The race for hosting VMs/Containers is a great short term opportunity but there is no long term differentiation to be had. I suspect in 10-20 years Azure wont make much money . Meanwhile Windows and Office are still popular but not as compelling as they used to be. Xbox? I'm not sure why Microsoft is so popular with investors.

Computing started with dumb terminals connected to super computers. Personal computing reversed the trend. Now the trend is reversing. Computing is increasingly being offloaded to the cloud. Gaming, graphics, it won't matter if an app is ARM or x86, 32bit or 64bit or 128bit, windows, android, linux or IOS if it runs on the cloud, even part of the operating system can be handled off hand-held devices. The only limit A…

I completely agree there is a big demand and a big market. The issue is whether providing these services is so profitable that MS deserves to be in the top few companies in the US. Is there really enough pricing power in Azure? Windows used to be strategically important. Outsourced hardware isn't.
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