Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft's quarterly profit drops below Apple's for the first time in 20 years

mashable.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 87 posts

Re: Microsoft's quarterly profit drops below Apple's for the first time in 20 years

#41

Post by orijing »

glhaynes wrote: post #30
orijing wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guys, I didn't mean to start such a discussion over the wording. I said it was misleading, not "cannot be interpreted correctly." In particular, by saying that X's profit dropped below Y's for the first time (without context of X and Y) suggests TO ME that X's profit dropped when that was not the case. By "misleading," I meant that had I not known profit figures already, I would have assumed the title meant that Micr…

I downvoted your original post because I read "misleading" as implying that it was intentionally, wilfully misleading - i.e. lying. But you're correct: the wording misled you (and understandably so) to an incorrect conclusion. Apologies.

No worries. Perhaps my use of "misleading" was itself misleading!

Re: Microsoft's quarterly profit drops below Apple's for the first time in 20 years

#42

Post by orijing »

cooldeal wrote: post #40

Microsoft spends a significant amount on basic research, like Bell labs used to and Microsoft research publishes a lot of publications. 15% of the research budget goes to universities for research, that could keep the profits lower than Apple.

In fact, Microsoft spends around $2-2.5b on R&D per quarter [1] while Apple spends $500-600m [2]. That certainly more than makes up for the difference.

[1] http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=MSFT

[2] http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL&fstype=ii

Re: Microsoft's quarterly profit drops below Apple's for the first time in 20 years

#45

Post by jammur »

watty wrote: post #18
jammur wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's misleading. Since it says that MS profit "drops below Apple's", it's making reference to a relative difference, in which case it did drop.

It can be understood in multiple ways, maybe not intentionally misleading but it could be written better. "My height grew above Yao Ming's last year". Did I surpass his height last year or grow more during that period of time?

In that case, you are now taller than Yao Ming. The subject of the sentence is your height, and you said it grew 'above'. Therefore the only valid interpretation is that your height is now above Yao Ming's. For it to be interpreted the other way, you would have had to say "My height grew _faster_ than Yao Ming's last year", or "My height _growth_ was above Yao Ming's last year". My point is that people can interpret things any way they want, but that doesn't mean their interpretation is valid.

Re: Microsoft's quarterly profit drops below Apple's for the first time in 20 years

#46

Post by brg »

hvass wrote: post #43

Can someone please explain why Apple spends relatively so much less than Microsoft on R&D? I would've thought it's the opposite.

I would look at it from the perspective of Microsoft spending so much more than everyone else.

Research encompasses a lot of things at MS, from pure research labs in Redmond, Boston, Cambridge to online services and live labs. Microsoft runs perhaps the largest CS research organization in existence, when basic research is considered alongside product research such as Bing and Photosynth.

MSR grew to be so by the promotion of Nathan Myhrvold, and the buy-in he was able to get from Gates and Ballmer. It maintains itself by being able to collect a lot of talent, and keeping them interested. But like Lucent, it probably only survives as long as the company is growing.

Re: Microsoft's quarterly profit drops below Apple's for the first time in 20 years

#47

Post by CamperBob »

bstar wrote: post #3

I guess I was most amazed that in 1991 Apple's profits were greater than Microsoft's. I was playing Ultima 6 and King's Quest V back then... I didn't know anything existed but the IBM PC.

Their margin was certainly higher. Macs were brutally expensive around that time. It was no trick at all to drop $10,000 on a high-end Mac system.

Re: Microsoft's quarterly profit drops below Apple's for the first time in 20 years

#48

Post by ugh »

cooldeal wrote: post #22
crs wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the "walled garden" anti-competitive. It doesn't stop anyone from writing applications for android, WebOS, etc. Apple is selling a hardware experience. We have a choice, use IOS devices with the walled garden experience, or use an alternative like Android or WebOS devices. Furthermore, "honor" has nothing to do with the ability to write apps for a platform without paying a fee. This is not similar to Microsoft…

>How is the "walled garden" anti-competitive. It doesn't stop anyone from writing applications for android, WebOS, etc Microsoft got a lot of flak for just shipping IE with the OS, whereas Apple doesn't even allow alternate browser engines such as Firefox and Chrome on iOS. Couple that with some capricious and silly rejecting or stonewalling of apps such as Google Voice and an Android magazine apps and I feel Apple i…

You can use any browser engine you want on OS X. The point of comparison obviously has to be Windows Mobile 7, not Windows 7.

Oh, and Microsoft got flak because they were behaving in an anticompetitive way. Shipping your OS with only ine browser engine is usually no problem and only in very specific instances illegal.

Re: Microsoft's quarterly profit drops below Apple's for the first time in 20 years

#49

Post by ugh »

cooldeal wrote: post #40

Microsoft spends a significant amount on basic research, like Bell labs used to and Microsoft research publishes a lot of publications. 15% of the research budget goes to universities for research, that could keep the profits lower than Apple.

And?

Re: Microsoft's quarterly profit drops below Apple's for the first time in 20 years

#50

Post by crs »

cooldeal wrote: post #22
crs wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the "walled garden" anti-competitive. It doesn't stop anyone from writing applications for android, WebOS, etc. Apple is selling a hardware experience. We have a choice, use IOS devices with the walled garden experience, or use an alternative like Android or WebOS devices. Furthermore, "honor" has nothing to do with the ability to write apps for a platform without paying a fee. This is not similar to Microsoft…

>How is the "walled garden" anti-competitive. It doesn't stop anyone from writing applications for android, WebOS, etc Microsoft got a lot of flak for just shipping IE with the OS, whereas Apple doesn't even allow alternate browser engines such as Firefox and Chrome on iOS. Couple that with some capricious and silly rejecting or stonewalling of apps such as Google Voice and an Android magazine apps and I feel Apple i…

Controlling the ecosystem it created is not anti-competitive. There seems to be confusion over not being able to distribute apps on Apple's platform, and not being able to compete against apple.
Post reply on HN