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

Is Microsoft in trouble?

fernstrategy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 93 posts

Re: Is Microsoft in trouble?

#61

Post by contextfree »

steveklabnik wrote: post #47
recoiledsnake wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding point a, the Entertainment and Devices division included Live, which they are heavily investing in, thus giving out a loss. The true profit of the XBox is much higher than $679 million. And what do you mean by 'Windows Phone 7 is not market ready, and it's already mid-October' ? They're launching in 2 days in Europe and in 3 weeks in the US. Also, from your linked article you write that Verizon won't be bri…

Doesn't Entertainment and Devices also include the Mac Business Unit, as well? Yep, apparently, it does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Business_Unit

They moved/are moving (not sure if it happened yet) Mac Office into the regular Office division, FYI. I guess it's probably not yet reflected in earnings statements.

Re: Is Microsoft in trouble?

#62

Post by asciitaxi »

I think the problem is that MS used to sell everyone Windows for $300 and Office for $300. Then everyone had to buy them again at work. I'm not sure how they can make this up licensing a phone OS. What can they charge? Ten dollars?

Re: Is Microsoft in trouble?

#63

Post by contextfree »

I have no idea why you think that (paid, subscription-based) cloud computing offerings threaten Microsoft's revenues. In fact they've been trying to get people to move to a subscription model for like a decade now - which is understandable, since competition with their own previous versions and keeping people on the upgrade cycle has always been one of their biggest problems - and they are definitely aggressively promoting it (considering that this year's and the last two years' PDCs are largely focused around it).

They are threatened in the consumer space by the trend towards web applications, they're not threatened in the enterprise space by the trend towards subscription-based cloud services (which is overhyped - including by Microsoft! anyway, but that's another story) - they welcome it. I guess people are conflating the two.

(Since you posted a version of this article in another HN thread, I've reposted my response from that thread here.)

Re: Is Microsoft in trouble?

#64

Post by rbanffy »

kenjackson wrote: post #43
rbanffy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sharepoint in particular has been a surprise breakout hit. Indeed. Tech historians will scratch their heads about that for generations. It's such a horrid product to use that one can only wonder how bad its competition is.

We disagree about a lot, but this is one thing that I do agree with. On both counts... Sharepoint doesn't seem to be very good software. But the competition is even worse. If some bright YC company that gets enterprise could come and do stellar document management, they'd easily have a $100M company. With potential for a $1B+ company.

I think it's only the perceived competition that's worse. I have deployed and helped deploy a great deal of intranets and websites based on Plone (I worked with "bare" Zope before) and it's delightful to use, manage, develop for and operate. True it doesn't have a billion+ dollar company behind it like Sharepoint, Documentum, Oracle's whatever-it's-called, but I think it's a feature rather than a bug.

> If some bright YC company (...)

As soon as this founder visa thing gets sorted out, I'm in.

Re: Is Microsoft in trouble?

#65

Post by code_duck »

lionhearted wrote: post #57

I'll never bet against a company with huge, established, consistent revenues and a strong research culture. That combination gives a large chance of being able to bring breakthrough technology to market.

Why can they not finish projects like the Courier tablet they were showing around? Or, even better, release something innovative before someone else has proven the market.

It's been years, and they are just barely getting around to addressing the iPhone. They let Apple take off running with the iPad, and Microsoft still offers no comparable hardware or software... and it's not clear at all when they will.

Re: Is Microsoft in trouble?

#66

Post by cryptoz »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #38
mjfern wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your points above: a) In Microsoft's 2010 fiscal year (which has ended), its Entertainment and Devices Division (which includes the Xbox 360) generated $8.5 billion in revenues and just $679 million in operating income. Considering Microsoft's consolidated operating income in 2010 was $24 billion, this $679 million only accounts for about 3% of Microsoft's profits. And in any event the Xbox 360, the PS3, and the W…

Regarding point a, the Entertainment and Devices division included Live, which they are heavily investing in, thus giving out a loss. The true profit of the XBox is much higher than $679 million. And what do you mean by 'Windows Phone 7 is not market ready, and it's already mid-October' ? They're launching in 2 days in Europe and in 3 weeks in the US. Also, from your linked article you write that Verizon won't be bri…

> And what do you mean by 'Windows Phone 7 is not market ready, and it's already mid-October' ?

I'm not sure what the OP meant by that, but here are some guesses:

1. If your friend emails you his address and you want to see the Bing Map to the location, you have to find a pen and paper to write it down. Then you have to open the Maps application and manually type it in.

This is because there's no copy+paste.

2. The web browser is IE7 + bits of IE8. This means very slow JavaScript, no HTML5, and a MS-locked-in web experience.

3. App developers cannot use sockets to access the internet, so most cool apps will be near-impossible to develop.

Re: Is Microsoft in trouble?

#68

Post by mattmaroon »

patd wrote: post #54
mattmaroon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do cringe every time I see someone talk about how the Wii is beating the Xbox. Console sales are only part of the battle, and not the big part. People buy a Wii, play Wii sports and maybe another couple games for a few weeks, and then it collects dust. Xbox owners subscribe to Xbox live and buy new games quite frequently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_game... Total Wii games sold as of June 1, 2010: 573 million Total Xbox 360 games sold as of December 2009: 353.8 million Total PlayStation 3 games sold as of June 30, 2010: 315.3 million So yes, the Wii is beating the crap out of the Xbox. Americans don't realize that the Xbox only does well in the US. Europe and Asia are a tough market for Microsoft.

This is counting games that come with the Wii. The Xbox does not come with one.

Xbox users pay to subscribe to Xbox live. Microsoft makes money providing the same service that Sony and Nintendo give away for free, and more people use it.

Re: Is Microsoft in trouble?

#69

Post by redrobot5050 »

latch wrote: post #22
aresant wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact if I was MSFT and you gave me $25.82 (current stock price) I'd give you back $0.64 a year and a share of my stock (current dividend price). And in fact, they've made that sale 8,650,000,000 times so far (current outstanding shares). http://www.dividend.com/dividend-stocks/technology/applicati... EDIT -> You're ignoring that the division DOUBLED profits over the last year, what if they maintain that growth rat…

I honestly look quite fondly on trending, and yes, xbox is trending in the right direction. But I still think calling it "wildly profitable" is silly. Having conceded that its trending positively, in this specific business, you're only as good as your last console. Nintendo is probably the only company that can lean heavily on its brand to get it through a poor hardware iteration (its brand and its so-far good-as-gol…

Keep in mind Nintendo is the only gaming company that sells hardware that turns a profit (Sony and MS lose money on console sales, or at least did on launch) and is actively trying to grow the market (and depending on who you believe, doing an incredible job of it)

The mere fact that both Sony and MS now sell hardware that imitates the Wii's functionality should tell you this isn't a poor hardware iteration.

Post reply on HN