Windows 8/Microsoft ($MSFT)
Two good posts:
- "For the first time, however, businesses can look to Google and to Apple and see plausible, battle-tested alternatives to the products they have used from Microsoft—for much less money. And in a bizarre way, Microsofts spasm of innovation has made the company now a destabilizing factor for IT departments and Google Docs is looking an awful lot like the old guard."
- "A company that plays this game for too long becomes set in their ways, and any chance of real change simply becomes impossible. Microsoft is there, and has been for a long long time. Their product lines have stagnated, creating customer lock in is prioritized over creating customer value, and the supply chain is controlled by an iron fisted monopoly. Any attempt at innovation with a Windows PC has been shut out for over a decade, woe betide anyone who tried to buck that trend. The history books are littered with the corpses of companies that tried to make change the Windows experience. Microsoft's displeasure is swift and fatal to those that try. Or at least it was."
The real question is whether it should be shorted. A $180B EV is a lot for a company that will be non-existent in a decade, even if it does have $16B in net income.
Have these people been in a Microsoft store recently?
4 comments:
I'm certainly torn. I really need to buy a new computer. I'm not very inspired to buy Windows 8 though.
I was an Apple Developer for quite a few years and enjoyed the platform immensely. We had to ship products on both the Mac and PC. I kept having to defend my preference of doing the primary development on the Mac. Since we kept shipping on time and the products went out with no known bugs it was a relatively easy defense though.
My only real gripe is the cost. Those profit margins at Apple make me cringe. It's the main reason why I have never personally owned an Apple product.
Next year could be a first though. We'll see.
Win 8 sucks, it's time to leave the platform - that's not even the question.
Is there a third option?
Good news is the profit margins will attract competition.
ETFs don't do fundamental research.
Ha! Well said.
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