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Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

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Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So, by any reasonable definition, Oracle's (and now Apache's) version is the fork, and LibreOffice is the main line.

LibreOffice is a continuation of the original development team, and the original code. The only thing they don't have is the name, which doesn't matter much in my mind. So why do you say that what's now called "OpenOffice" is the main line, and "LibreOffice" is a fork? What's your definition of a fork, exactly?

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#154
post #65

I've really come to admire Satya Nadella as a great CEO.

Two large changes for better in Microsoft: 1. 2006 Bill Gates stepped down as a Chief Software Architect 2. 2014 Satya Nadella became CEO after Ballmer. Gates was good CEO but he was not a good Chief Architect. He had the knowledge, the intelligence and skills, but he had no ability to do good high-level choices. Chief Architect needs to know when to sacrifice in details to get the whole slightly better. Microsoft is…

> Microsoft is not known for innovation

um, okay.

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#156
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN in general has an info bubble problem, where it looks to them like Microsoft is dying because trendy Bay Area startups all use Slack and Google Docs. But in the rest of the industry, Microsoft is huge and, if anything, getting stronger over time and not weaker. Microsoft products that HN has never even heard of, like Dynamics and Host Integration Server, still make billions in revenue.

Exactly. Honestly I've been telling people for the last year to buy MS stock. They are going for recurring revenue with all their business facing products, and it's working. The business world, outside of SV apparently, runs on MS products.

I think the most important thing is that the recurring revenue products actually doesn't suck. I think it's because it's operating in a competitive market, where switching is easier so it has to work well and also integrate well with other software. This is different from just leveraging lock in and just bringing out updates with less tangible benefits to force people to upgrade.

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#157

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…

HN in general has an info bubble problem, where it looks to them like Microsoft is dying because trendy Bay Area startups all use Slack and Google Docs. But in the rest of the industry, Microsoft is huge and, if anything, getting stronger over time and not weaker. Microsoft products that HN has never even heard of, like Dynamics and Host Integration Server, still make billions in revenue.

And I really hope it stays that way. I have rejected jobs because they use Microsoft tools.

I dislike the Soviet-like brutalism of Windows and all the bloated software built on top of it. Interoperability is mostly non-existent and if it exists, is limited. Sames goes for configurability. That limits the amount of automation you can achieve.

You have absurd nonsense like software taking 1 hour to install (Visual Studio). That is unheard of in any other OS unless you are recompiling everything on your machine, which is optional.

Since everything is proprietary and closed source, if some dependency is discontinued you are on your own. And this happens often with Microsoft's own APIs.

On top of that, now you have all the telemetry fiasco, ads and nagware integrated directly in the OS.

Good job acting in your own self interest. Here's another great idea as good as investing on Microsoft: invest in a patent troll, or tobacco products for kids.

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#158
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN in general has an info bubble problem, where it looks to them like Microsoft is dying because trendy Bay Area startups all use Slack and Google Docs. But in the rest of the industry, Microsoft is huge and, if anything, getting stronger over time and not weaker. Microsoft products that HN has never even heard of, like Dynamics and Host Integration Server, still make billions in revenue.

Exactly. Honestly I've been telling people for the last year to buy MS stock. They are going for recurring revenue with all their business facing products, and it's working. The business world, outside of SV apparently, runs on MS products.

If you want a software monopoly trolling everyone with patents, by all means invest in Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#159
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give Google a little more credit. They have 7 separate products with over 1 billion users each [0]. Search, Gmail, Android, Chrome, Maps, Youtube and the Google Play Store. [0]: https://www.popsci.com/google-has-7-products-with-1-billion-...

Agreed, but they still make like 90% of their money from ads.

You're close. The number is currently 86% and has been falling over time.

https://abc.xyz/investor/pdf/2018Q1_alphabet_earnings_releas...

Re: Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet

#160

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.

Not unlikely, but as well; both the stock discount and the moonshots have to do with Google being so dependent on one source for its income (ads) as others here have noted.
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