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The Ballmer Days Are Over

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Re: The Ballmer Days Are Over

#61

Post by nickgeiger »

asr wrote: post #31

I'm sorry, he lost me at comparing Microsoft stock to Apple and Google over the past 10 years. In retrospect, those are two of the most successful publicly traded tech companies of the period--not a fair comparison. Not to mention those were small companies in 2000. For Microsoft stock to have increased 1200% (as Google's did) it would have probably had to grow into some very significant portion of the world economy.…

It might be unfair to compare the stock price to Google and Apple, but if you compare Gates to Ballmer, you can see that the stock has completely flattened since he took over. The rest of the article does point out some moves by him that sound really embarrassing. Having seen some videos of him doing interviews and presentations, I've had a very negative view of him and these points just reinforce that. Microsoft definitely seems on its way to irrelevance.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/chart-microsofts-performance-u...

Re: The Ballmer Days Are Over

#62

Post by mgkimsal »

jaz wrote: post #3

Sure, Microsoft could have built a skype clone in-house for far less than $8bn. But would people actually sign up and use it - to the tune of 124 million people per month? My guess is no, at least not for several quarters.

They would have made it windows-only, tied it to a "live" account, perhaps tied it to xbox or wp7, then wondered why people weren't using it.

Re: The Ballmer Days Are Over

#63

Post by thematt »

[deleted] wrote: post #59
thematt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the market cap be adjusted to reflect dividends? Those have been paid out to shareholders and no longer represent assets of the company.

[deleted]

The market returns should be adjusted for dividends. The market capitalization is what it is, simply a reflection of price and shares outstanding.

Re: The Ballmer Days Are Over

#64

Post by siglesias »

>> In fact, the acquisition by most accounts sounded more like a move by Ballmer to buy something that others may have wanted to own — just for the sake of others not owning it.

This struck me because I'm presently reading Stephen Levy's In the Plex, in which he reports at great lengths about why Google decided not to purchase Skype when eBay had it up for sale: mainly owing to Skype's peer-to-peer technology not being compatible with Google's existing centralized infrastructure. What reason would Microsoft have to think that this reasoning had changed?

Re: The Ballmer Days Are Over

#65

Post by commandar »

thematt wrote: post #29
jmvoodoo wrote: post #4

Microsoft is entering what Jim Collins would call the 4th stage of decline: Grasping for salvation. Unless something changes dramatically very soon, I wouldn't be placing my bets on Redmond.

That's an overstatement to say the least. Microsoft still mints money at an incredible rate. They may be doing terrible in the mobile and web space, but Windows and Office will continue to live for a long time, particularly in corporate environments.

But unless Microsoft finds a new vision and direction, they're in serious trouble when those cash cows start to go dry.

What makes Microsoft's floundering under Ballmer particularly galling is the fact that Microsoft has been acutely aware of this for a very long time; the Sun and Netscape antitrust suits were born of Microsoft's fear of a platform-neutral world.

It's not here today, and we're only starting to see the first seeds of it with the rise of rich web applications and platforms like ChromeOS, but it's on its way. Microsoft still has a timeline in the scale of years to work with, but they need to start focusing aggressively on the future sooner rather than later, and, frankly, I don't see Ballmer as being the person capable of guiding the company through a transition they're going to have to make if they're going to survive in the long-term.

Re: The Ballmer Days Are Over

#66

Post by qq66 »

sunir wrote: post #42
ericd wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having Windows users be able to call each other and every other Skype user right out of the box could be pretty interesting.

Skype already has enough market share that bundling with Windows is not likely to generate enough growth to justify the purchase alone.

Windows has ~4 times as many users as Skype.

Re: The Ballmer Days Are Over

#67

Post by thematt »

biot wrote: post #39
thematt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the market cap be adjusted to reflect dividends? Those have been paid out to shareholders and no longer represent assets of the company.

When comparing a dividend-paying stock to non-dividend paying stocks, the dividend-paying stock's price per share should be adjusted to incorporate the dividends paid (for comparative purposes only). As someone else pointed out, even if Microsoft's stock didn't gain a cent you would have made over $6 since 2005 from the dividends paid. Since the comparative price of the stock would get adjusted to reflect this and ma…

I agree with you then, particularly when you say for comparative purposes only. My contention was that somebody evaluating the stock for purchase today should not include past dividends in the current market capitalization.

Re: The Ballmer Days Are Over

#68

Post by larrik »

siglesias wrote: post #64

>> In fact, the acquisition by most accounts sounded more like a move by Ballmer to buy something that others may have wanted to own — just for the sake of others not owning it. This struck me because I'm presently reading Stephen Levy's In the Plex , in which he reports at great lengths about why Google decided not to purchase Skype when eBay had it up for sale: mainly owing to Skype's peer-to-peer technology not be…

If you look at Microsoft's words and actions in regards to their competitors, they are clearly completely clueless.

In fact, "Microsoft people" are often completely blind to everything not made by Microsoft. Reading HN you may never know, but if you've met actual .NET stack developers, or MSCE's or anyone else similar, and you'll find people who make websites and don't know what apache is. Or they'll dismiss open source technologies with ridiculous reasoning.

That's what I see when MS speaks.

(To be fair, IBM can be the same way, if you are in certain industries, and I would imagine Cisco has the same effect in networking, but that's outside my knowledge)

Re: The Ballmer Days Are Over

#69

Post by aik »

brg wrote: post #53
melling wrote: post #5

The world will be a little better off with a decline of Microsoft. 90% desktop market share is too much. More diversity will be healthier. Chromebooks should take some market share. Microsoft can own 50-70% market share and still be very profitable. They might even be more innovative in other areas.

Chromebooks as they are now are not attractive. Apple's mobile platform, MacBook, IPad, IPhone, is significantly eating into MS share.

Who exactly are you speaking for when you say they are not attractive? A large part of Microsoft's share is in school/org licenses. Another large one is for the unskilled users of computers. I would very much consider Google as a real competitor for them.

Re: The Ballmer Days Are Over

#70

Post by ikono »

asr wrote: post #31

I'm sorry, he lost me at comparing Microsoft stock to Apple and Google over the past 10 years. In retrospect, those are two of the most successful publicly traded tech companies of the period--not a fair comparison. Not to mention those were small companies in 2000. For Microsoft stock to have increased 1200% (as Google's did) it would have probably had to grow into some very significant portion of the world economy.…

He started with the Nasdaq comparison, which is fair, and they don't look great in that comparison either. I don't agree with everything in the article but tuning out at the Apple/Google comparison isn't "fair"
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