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

Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 127 posts

Re: Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

#51

Post by bmitc »

dataangel wrote: post #42
bmitc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is much more diversified than that. They have entire consulting services and a world class research arm and many other things that Apple has no analog of.

Ignorant question: Does much actually make it out of MS Research? I've seen lots of interesting retrospectives on stuff that either failed or just has never come out of the lab (Singularity/Midori, accessibility demos showing phones reading restaurant menus to the blind, their tablet pre-ipad, etc.) but I don't think I know of anything they made that really grew up off the top of my head. I didn't want to say this wi…

There are several examples. F# came from Microsoft Research and has also fed into C#. Also, Haskell.

Note that it does research and not R&D. You aren't going to get products from research but rather technology advancements that then get incorporated. That happens a lot, and they obviously publish a lot.

Re: Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

#52

Post by skc »

KoftaBob wrote: post #11
thriftwy wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Their revenue sources are more diverse than you think. Products that are either directlyfrom their portfolio, or from a company they have a large stake in - Windows - Office 365, which includes Teams, a product that has boomed in usage since 2020 - Xbox + Activision Blizzard - Azure Cloud, the 2nd largest cloud computing platform - Github, by far the largest version control platform for developers - Linkedin, quickly…

SQL Server is a massive business as well.

Re: Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

#53

Post by Eric_WVGG »

al_borland wrote: post #30
riley333 wrote: post #17

Apple just needs to do SOMETHING exciting with AI. Vision Pro looks great, but it's only a small piece of a much larger puzzle. I'm not sure if they're just too big to move at the speed they need to move or if it's something more damning about their internal culture but they need to do something in this space faster than I think most people realize.

Apple is rarely first to release new tech. They watch and develop quietly in the lab, then release an implementation that everyone else seems to copy. So far their approach has been different, but their last keynote mentioned ML countless times. We can only assume they have more in the pipeline, and it will run locally on-device, which seems preferable to all the data collection being done with most companies working…

Funny how we’re at the eve of Vision Pro coming to consumers, twelve years after the Oculus Rift.

blah blah those who don't study history something whatever

Re: Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

#54

Post by shortcrct »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #45
GoToRO wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also people don't realize how local Apple is. In a lot of countries you can't even access their services which decreases the value of their devices.

But oddly enough one of those countries isn't China. Its weird how Google and Facebook can't do much their while everything from Apple works as well as anywhere else.

Because Apple is willing to play China's game. Google and Facebook's business models (ads) fundamentally don't work with China's government. They sell different products than Apple.

Re: Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

#55

Post by [deleted] »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #45
GoToRO wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also people don't realize how local Apple is. In a lot of countries you can't even access their services which decreases the value of their devices.

But oddly enough one of those countries isn't China. Its weird how Google and Facebook can't do much their while everything from Apple works as well as anywhere else.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

#56

Post by CharlesW »

paxys wrote: post #25
scottyah wrote: post #10

The main things I see lately are: Apple is creating VR headsets and new chip technology, Microsoft is buying up AI companies and injecting ads/spyware into their operating systems. Also Microsoft is getting big into cloud. Interesting to see what Wall Street rewards.

Microsoft is one of the most diversified companies in existence. Pretty much every business, every government and most consumers around the world are directly or indirectly paying them money for something , whether software, devices, consulting, cloud, data. On the other hand Apple's success for the last 15 years has relied on a single device. Now that the device is running into some issues (dropping sales in China,…

> On the other hand Apple's success for the last 15 years has relied on a single device.

That "single device company" makes just half of its revenue from iPhones. Recurring services revenue accounted for almost 25%.

Re: Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

#57

Post by thefz »

scottyah wrote: post #10

The main things I see lately are: Apple is creating VR headsets and new chip technology, Microsoft is buying up AI companies and injecting ads/spyware into their operating systems. Also Microsoft is getting big into cloud. Interesting to see what Wall Street rewards.

Microsoft has been innovating way more than Apple, which is always going for the low hanging fruit of taking tested and consolidated tech from others and rebranding it as its own.

Re: Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

#58

Post by thefz »

dataangel wrote: post #42
bmitc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is much more diversified than that. They have entire consulting services and a world class research arm and many other things that Apple has no analog of.

Ignorant question: Does much actually make it out of MS Research? I've seen lots of interesting retrospectives on stuff that either failed or just has never come out of the lab (Singularity/Midori, accessibility demos showing phones reading restaurant menus to the blind, their tablet pre-ipad, etc.) but I don't think I know of anything they made that really grew up off the top of my head. I didn't want to say this wi…

Read or watch something about how flight simulator was built, as an example

Re: Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

#59

Post by paxys »

CharlesW wrote: post #56
paxys wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is one of the most diversified companies in existence. Pretty much every business, every government and most consumers around the world are directly or indirectly paying them money for something , whether software, devices, consulting, cloud, data. On the other hand Apple's success for the last 15 years has relied on a single device. Now that the device is running into some issues (dropping sales in China,…

> On the other hand Apple's success for the last 15 years has relied on a single device. That "single device company" makes just half of its revenue from iPhones. Recurring services revenue accounted for almost 25%.

How much of that other half would still be around if the iPhone was no longer a thing? Apple Care? App store purchases? IAP/microtransactions? Apple Pay? iCloud storage? Chargers? Airpods?

They can structure their financial reports however they like, but it doesn't change the fact that their entire ecosystem is directly or indirectly tied to that one device.

Re: Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company

#60

Post by riley333 »

al_borland wrote: post #30
riley333 wrote: post #17

Apple just needs to do SOMETHING exciting with AI. Vision Pro looks great, but it's only a small piece of a much larger puzzle. I'm not sure if they're just too big to move at the speed they need to move or if it's something more damning about their internal culture but they need to do something in this space faster than I think most people realize.

Apple is rarely first to release new tech. They watch and develop quietly in the lab, then release an implementation that everyone else seems to copy. So far their approach has been different, but their last keynote mentioned ML countless times. We can only assume they have more in the pipeline, and it will run locally on-device, which seems preferable to all the data collection being done with most companies working…

That's true, and Apple has the capital to do pretty much whatever they want. I just think as we've seen with Google/Gemini it doesn't seem that easy to beat what OpenAI has going even with a lot of money to throw behind it. And I don't think Tim Cook is that much of a visionary but that's just my personal opinion.

I hope Apple does succeed though because I love their hardware and their silicon is great for AI applications.

Post reply on HN