> No longer the Goliath it once was—in large part because of the ascendance of companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple made possible by a settlement Microsoft signed
Hahaha, haha, ha. I'll just stop you right there, Dan Goodin.
Microsoft is several times the goliath they were at their Windows monopoly / anti-trust days peak.
If you had to pick the company that will be the most profitable tech company five years from now, who would you pick? Apple? Facebook? Google? Amazon?
It's Microsoft. They'll be the most profitable company on earth five years from now.
Operating income the last four quarters:
Microsoft: $53 billion
Apple is at $67 billion and barely growing. Their operating income has increased by a mere 11-12% in the last four years. Microsoft's operating income increased by about 140% over that time.
Google? They're going to soon have half the operating income of Microsoft. In terms of profit centers they've entirely failed to branch out from search advertising; that dog has largely seen its day, their growth potential in search advertising is rapidly heading toward zero (and Google is soon going to lose all of China for Android; it's a 100% guarantee they will move off of Android as soon as possible, nothing will stop that outcome now). Google as a corporation is a zombie, it walks around headless, directionless, with the least talented management team among major tech companies. Larry and Sergey are entirely responsible for that mess.
Amazon has 1/3 the operating income of Microsoft and will never catch up; and AWS will eventually be spun off anyway. Facebook's growth rate is going to continue to trend downward. Facebook applied the brakes to their thin operating model several years ago, and has gone on a massive cost expansion since. Under the former thin model, Facebook had a distant shot at catching Microsoft in profit, now they don't.
The anti-trust agreement Microsoft signed is part of the reason for that massive boom in prosperity. In pushing for anti-trust action, Silicon Valley did Microsoft a huge favor. It forced Microsoft to be aggressive about looking for other ways to make money that weren't locked to their Windows monopoly position. If that hadn't happened, the odds were drastically higher than Microsoft would have rotted away over time, stuck permanently on Windows and following its erosion of prominence. In the future, Microsoft will make as much money just off of Azure Linux-based services as they do Windows in total.
Also, conveniently, Microsoft is the only tech giant not being pursued for anti-trust right now. They have a wide open field to expand into. Karma is a bitch, Silicon Valley; you helped create something in Redmond that is far more powerful than Microsoft circa 1998, and while it grows unencumbered, your tech giants are all going to be tied down by the government, with every move and acquisition closely scrutinized.