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

mashable.com

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

#61

Post by Niten »

runjake wrote: post #4

For me, it's more interesting that Apple did this without a lot of the shady business & licensing practices that Microsoft engages in. Edit: Before downvoting me, take a look at my comment history. I'm not your typical Apple fan/Microsoft basher.

Ha! Suing competitors over dubious patents; pushing for legislation to punish people for using their own hardware how they see fit; trying their hardest to keep people from using iPods and iPhones with anything but iTunes; designing special screws to lock people out of working on their own Macs and iDevices, increasing service revenue; abusing their control over the App Store to keep out competitors; instituting a new App Store policy to force content providers to pay 30% to Apple, and disallowing providers from raising prices in the App Store vs. on other platforms to cover this cost...

None of this sounds the least bit shady to you?

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

#62

Post by r00fus »

eddieplan9 wrote: post #21

MSFT is down 4.4% now: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-offers-more-muted...

Probably has to do with concurrent reasons why Apple is overtaking them in profitability, notably, the iPad is absorbing the netbook market (MS reported netbook sales down 40%).

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

#63

Post by emehrkay »

runjake wrote: post #4

For me, it's more interesting that Apple did this without a lot of the shady business & licensing practices that Microsoft engages in. Edit: Before downvoting me, take a look at my comment history. I'm not your typical Apple fan/Microsoft basher.

I keep it simple; Apple contributes to open source projects that could be (and have been) used as direct competitors to their own, while MS sues companies who implement open source software.

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

#64

Post by johncoltrane »

romey wrote: post #52

What I think is most interesting about this is that 1. People continue to compare Microsoft and Apple as if they were directly competing, in spite of the fact the Apple is [primarily] a hardware company and MS is [primarily a software co. and 2. In spite of being primarily a hardware company, Apple is still able to be more profitable than Microsoft. They truly do release their hardware as if it were software, iterati…

Its not only blog commenters, pundits or people.

You wouldn't believe how much MSFT people are fixated on Apple despite having no direct competition between each other (except Zune Vs. iPod, but I would say it doesn't count). The fruit word and the fruit logo used to come up in almost every external powerpoint presentations/briefings five or four years ago, it was crazy. They are/were fascinated by Apple and lack any ability to even understand how they work and, of course, learn from them.

For some reason, I find it hard to imagine a keynote in Cupertino with a pixelated Windows logo in every slide. But I might be wrong.

I hear now they are fascinated by Google, now.

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

#65

Post by pohl »

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.

May 2010: marketCap(AAPL) > marketCap(MSFT)

"Bah, it's revenue that matters"

October 2010: revenue(AAPL) > revenue(MSFT)

"Bah, profit is the real metric"

April 2011: profit(AAPL) > profit(MSFT)

"Bah, basic research is where it's at!"

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

#66

Post by cooldeal »

pohl wrote: post #65
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.

May 2010: marketCap(AAPL) > marketCap(MSFT) "Bah, it's revenue that matters" October 2010: revenue(AAPL) > revenue(MSFT) "Bah, profit is the real metric" April 2011: profit(AAPL) > profit(MSFT) "Bah, basic research is where it's at!"

I was just making an observation, not making an excuse for Microsoft. Apple may have "won" long ago vs. MS for all I care, if that is what you want me to say. I don't know how my reply got twisted into something that I didn't say.

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

#67

Post by wooster »

orijing wrote: post #42
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

I was on a team once at Apple with ~15 people on it. At one point, we found out the equivalent group at Microsoft had ~500 people.

Most people I've talked to who worked elsewhere are shocked at how small the teams at Apple are.

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

#68

Post by rapind »

cooldeal wrote: post #66
pohl wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May 2010: marketCap(AAPL) > marketCap(MSFT) "Bah, it's revenue that matters" October 2010: revenue(AAPL) > revenue(MSFT) "Bah, profit is the real metric" April 2011: profit(AAPL) > profit(MSFT) "Bah, basic research is where it's at!"

I was just making an observation, not making an excuse for Microsoft. Apple may have "won" long ago vs. MS for all I care, if that is what you want me to say. I don't know how my reply got twisted into something that I didn't say.

Nothing new. Some people get very excited about anything that might somehow be construed as negative about Apple.

After all, we need to nip it in the bud before even a seemingly innocent comment can set the precedent that Apple criticism is acceptable.

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

#69

Post by pohl »

cooldeal wrote: post #66
pohl wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May 2010: marketCap(AAPL) > marketCap(MSFT) "Bah, it's revenue that matters" October 2010: revenue(AAPL) > revenue(MSFT) "Bah, profit is the real metric" April 2011: profit(AAPL) > profit(MSFT) "Bah, basic research is where it's at!"

I was just making an observation, not making an excuse for Microsoft. Apple may have "won" long ago vs. MS for all I care, if that is what you want me to say. I don't know how my reply got twisted into something that I didn't say.

I was also just making an observation that I thought was amusing. I was just riffing off of your post, not degrading it. Not all replies are arguments.

I agree that Microsoft has done a lot of great research, and I hope that some day they can turn more of it into products. Alas, from reading the pub directory at llvm.org, for example, I get the impression that when something similar to Bartok & Singularity become products for real users they're going to come from elsewhere.

Time will tell, though.

I do love my Kinect.

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

#70

Post by singular »

wooster wrote: post #67
orijing wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I was on a team once at Apple with ~15 people on it. At one point, we found out the equivalent group at Microsoft had ~500 people. Most people I've talked to who worked elsewhere are shocked at how small the teams at Apple are.

Did you find the small team size a pleasant experience? Is it a case of many small teams adding up to a lot of people, or genuinely few small teams?
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