
Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet - Bhilai
https://www.fastcompany.com/40579141/microsoft-is-now-worth-more-than-google
======
lalos
As a long term investor, I'm worried with Google. All the bills are paid by ad
revenue, a single horse. Then there is this bubble of claims that they have
the best engineers and work environment yet this has not produced any other
business equivalent to the ad business. Then they have a reputation of
creating awesome tools that then get killed in years, enterprise customers
don't like this unpredictability. Microsoft on the other hand is the master of
supporting old platforms, I've seen some really old apps (from the 90s) run on
the latest OS's. Enterprise loves this and that is were the money is. The only
clear strength I see on Google is that they are masters of advertising and I
see how they sell to developers that there way is the way to go. That is a
good HR strength since they will always have a pipe of engineers that want to
work for them.

~~~
petra
Ads are Google's business model, but they make their major money from a few
different leading products : Search, ad platform(both internal and external),
YouTube, Android.

~~~
nomel
Do you have a reference for these claims?

Search and Youtube seem to be ad hosting platforms, and "ad platfom" seems it
would be from ads. The Android ad revenue slice seems to be missing from
Google.

------
wonder_bread
Kind of interesting to see Microsoft & Amazon 'passing by' Google lately,
considering how much more earning power they have than either of them.

Even if Amazon didn't spend a dime on R&D the most they could've earned on
operating income is ~$26B, if Microsoft zeroed out their R&D they could've had
about ~$35B.

Meanwhile, if Google decided to go full-profit last year they would've had on
the order of $42B.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Clearly some investors don't believe in Google's moonshots.

~~~
Combasems
So far have any worked out?

~~~
ernopp
Gmail and Android can be considered moonshots, completely separate bets from
the cash cow search product. They have both been enormously successful and
been the starting point for new revenue lines (the whole GSuite for
businesses, the Play Store)

Next moonshot which looks extremely promising is Waymo

------
Isamu
>Google’s demotion is undoubtedly only temporary.

I think so, the revenue trend for Google is too strong. Google passed Msft in
revenue in FY2016 I believe.

But the public perception around Google has taken some hits, and Microsoft has
reformed its public image.

>Still, this is big news for Microsoft who has shifted focus under the
leadership of CEO Satya Nadella

Hope so, I've been bullish on Nadella.

~~~
deaddodo
The surface line is the first time I looked at a PC and went: "OK, that's a
cohesive computing unit". Like, overall I've always been a
Windows/Linux/FreeBSD guy, and despite hardware being very power, there's
never really been slick, cohesive option excepting the occasional HP Envy,
Thinkpad X1 Carbon, Dell XPS 15, etc.

The entire Surface line (hardware wise, RT was a software fluke) has been
slick though, IMO.

------
bfe
I've really come to admire Satya Nadella as a great CEO.

~~~
oprah2018
To really get my respect he needs to kill off ads in the Windows start menu
and the pervasive Cortana surveillance.

To really, REALLY get my respect: I would like to see Microsoft be a pure,
best-practice software company. Do GREAT things independently of Windows. Make
native Mac applications that are truly great. Make a better Mac application
than Apple can. Make better iOS apps. Be a champion of Linux. and so on.
Strive for greatness on every platform, embracing that platform's uniqueness.

~~~
deaddodo
Haha. Really?

Microsoft actually ports their software to Mac, using native APIs and
idiomatic software design, for the platform:

[http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Business/Microsoft-
Office-2011....](http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Business/Microsoft-
Office-2011.shtml)

Meanwhile, Apple brings the exact same software as is on macOS to Windows,
with no thought to integration:

[https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/sty...](https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/styles/xlarge/public/field/image/2017/04/itunes-
windows-1.jpg?itok=B2tCtn52)

~~~
KyeRussell
I wasn’t aware that this was an old school Apple vs Microsoft debate. But
alas.

I don’t know if you’ve actually used the latest Office for Mac. It’s better
than the older versions, but it’s still obvious that MS isn’t fully proficient
in macOS development. For starters, the interface doesn’t respect the scaling
settings on my 5K iMac. I’d expect that sort of shoddy UI from Steam or
something.

The fact that iTunes for Windows is trash doesn’t change this fact at all, so
I don’t knkw what you’re getting at.

------
sureaboutthis
Microsoft is now worth more than Alphabet. Fixed that.

Alphabet includes Google but also all their other companies. I wonder how many
of these included companies are not profitable entities at the moment but
future investments and dragged Alphabet's value down a bit.

I don't know. I'm just sayin'.

~~~
dullgiulio
Non-profitable companies under the Alphabet umbralla are, as the name
suggests, bets. Investors in stock usually take that into account and price in
what they think the potential value that they can generate is.

------
andyidsinga
I find this inline with my own positive vs negative views of microsoft over
time.

I spent a good part of my early career in the 90s building products on windows
and both fearing and admiring microsoft - but mostly fearing and hedging my
skills on linux.

In the 00's microsoft seemed almost like a non-player and their products
mostly legacy.

But since windows 10 and my recent experience building on Azure I've been
pleasantly surprised and find my view of them back on the positive side.

I'm particularly impressed with Azure -- a few years ago I wouldn't have
thought they could have created a competent alternative to AWS ..and here they
are.

------
srean
They are very different companies culturally -- attract different kinds of
people. MS is better in business, Google better in tech. In MS you would have
to fight for the permission or space to make something better if its already
bringing in enterprise money, where 'making better' could mean well known bugs
with possibly easy fixes. At Google it used to be ok to make something better
to scratch one's itch, or just because it really ought to be better.

------
rajeshpant
Good to see someone from Bhilai on HN community?

~~~
kumarharsh
He's not from Bhilai, he IS Bhilai!!! :P

------
lkrubner
I'm puzzled why "Proven"s comment is dead? What they wrote seems accurate.
There is no reason why this comment should be downvoted, and certainly no
reason why the comment should be dead. This is what they wrote:

    
    
          Simply speaking they actually make more products people like to use.
    
          Google essentially has just one, and it’s based on diminishing user privacy to the maximum extent possible.
    
          MS collects user data but so do Ubuntu and CentOS... not to the extent Google and FB do it.
    

That is absolutely true. Microsoft has a huge range of products. It produced
three of the most profitable products in history:

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft Office

For awhile, circa 2005-2015, there was some thought that Microsoft's products
were going to be replaced by online equivalents, and was a contributing factor
that held down Microsoft's stock at that time. But it is now clear that
Microsoft's products are going to survive. Partly, Microsoft has adapted to
the online world, and partly, large enterprises are more comfortable with
Microsoft's model, rather than Google or Zoho or Wufoo or any other online
replacements.

Microsoft Excel remains the default lingua franca of business. Google Docs and
Spreadsheets has not replaced Office.

And SQL Server continues to have a huge number of fans, even in a world full
of very good open source databases.

~~~
jobu
While I agree with most of your points, this one seems arguable:

> _Microsoft Excel remains the default lingua franca of business. Google Docs
> and Spreadsheets has not replaced Office._

Google Docs, Sheets and Slides have taken over the education market from
elementary school through college, and for many businesses Google's offerings
have become interchangeable with Microsoft's. Outlook and Excel still have a
strong hold on larger companies because Google hasn't matched features, but
Google Docs are much easier to share and collaborate with coworkers.

~~~
oculusthrift
I agree with your comment but as it stands the business market is MUCH larger
than the education market. Most schools don’t use either or don’t pay much.
Schools are seen as essentially a small vertical in the extremely large
market. Just think of all the companies who pay for 20,000 microsoft licenses.
A lot of the market you describe is free.

~~~
beauzero
Just left a place with 17k+ G Suite accounts (K-12). They used free G Suite.
Google is ingenious in how they are "certifying" educators on G Suite. The
price for the tests are incredibly cheap < $50. They didn't even think of
going with Microsoft, even though tiers 1,2 are free with tier 3 being $2 per
user? for K-12.

State government is exactly the opposite. While not trivial standing up a
shared AD tenet is easy/doable and gives you quick SSO in the cloud for .NET
based web apps when everybody (logins) is on the tenet/AD. Quick being the
keyword.

------
bitmapbrother
I just checked the market and as of 2:30 PM EST Google is now worth more than
Microsoft.

~~~
Jyaif
Somebody should write an article about this.

------
s2g
They have been trading back and forth for a while.

Why is this suddenly news?

------
s2g
> Google’s demotion is undoubtedly only temporary

Why?

------
Proven
Simply speaking they actually make more products people like to use.

Google essentially has just one, and it’s based on diminishing user privacy to
the maximum extent possible.

MS collects user data but so do Ubuntu and CentOS... not to the extent Google
and FB do it.

~~~
radarsat1
> MS collects user data but so do Ubuntu and CentOS... not to the extent
> Google and FB do it.

They're working on it though.

I just installed Windows 10 for the first time on a brand new computer I
bought. I was shocked to discover that I _could not_ make an account on my own
personal machine without "logging in" to a Microsoft service either with an
existing or new email address. I looked up tutorials to skip that step but
they all pointed to a button ("No account" or something like that) that was
_not on my screen_ , I swear. No button was provided to skip logging into a
Microsoft account. Next, I had to give them my phone number for user
verification. Also no way to skip that step. I had to wait for a verification
code, which by the way failed, (got the message, they didn't accept the code),
tried again, never got the new message.. figured out how to back out of that,
then provided a proper email... Once set up, in making extra user accounts on
the machine, they now differentiate for some reason between "Family" users and
non-"Family" users.

This is on MY PERSONAL COMPUTER. I literally want to just be able to use
Microsoft Word on the rare occasion that I am forced to use it, and I found
myself having to fork over my phone number and make TWO accounts. (One for
ASUS too for some reason.) I found the whole process of setting up Windows
shockingly invasive. I even had to explicitly opt out of letting them
advertise to me on my own personal computer, and sending my personal info to
advertisers. Not on websites. There are ads on like.. the file explorer or
something. I mean, what the hell? What is this a shopping mall kiosk? No, it's
a laptop I bought and paid for! Why would I want ADS?

I dual-booted Ubuntu on it right away, who wanted nothing but my name and
desired username, and provided extremely clear method to opt out of submitting
my info to Ubuntu servers, and am happily using that now with no issues.

MS definitely _want_ your personal information, they just aren't as good at
getting it as FB. I wouldn't give them a pass on privacy, not with how Windows
10 is now organized.

~~~
maltalex
I’ve installed Windows 10 Pro 1803 on two separate machines in the last month.
Both with local accounts.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Could this be a Pro vs Home thing?

~~~
Semaphor
Nope, MS just uses some Dark Pattern (at least on home) to make it seem that
way. The link to make a local account is not obvious.

~~~
radarsat1
> Nope, MS just uses some Dark Pattern (at least on home) to make it seem that
> way. The link to make a local account is not obvious.

I don't know how to prove it, maybe i should have taken a photo (but who cares
right), but the link was not dark, it was _not there_. I was able to make a
local account and switch to it after installation, but I was not able to
completely the installation without a Microsoft account.

You don't have to believe me of course, but the screen did not appear exactly
the same as in help tutorials I googled.

~~~
Semaphor
My fiancee just got a new laptop. They went from dark pattern to downright
evil, the only option was to disconnect wifi, say you need a new address.
Enter bullshit data and afterward it will create a local account for you. Fuck
that shit.

------
rb808
I dont really understand this. The race for hosting VMs/Containers is a great
short term opportunity but there is no long term differentiation to be had. I
suspect in 10-20 years Azure wont make much money . Meanwhile Windows and
Office are still popular but not as compelling as they used to be. Xbox? I'm
not sure why Microsoft is so popular with investors.

~~~
vezycash
Computing started with dumb terminals connected to super computers.

Personal computing reversed the trend.

Now the trend is reversing. Computing is increasingly being offloaded to the
cloud. Gaming, graphics, it won't matter if an app is ARM or x86, 32bit or
64bit or 128bit, windows, android, linux or IOS if it runs on the cloud, even
part of the operating system can be handled off hand-held devices.

The only limit AFAIK is network latency. As network speeds, reliability
improves and costs approaches zero, cloud computing would become more
valuable.

If battery no longer an issue, cloud computing might wane. Until then, MS is
right to bet on cloud.

~~~
rb808
I completely agree there is a big demand and a big market. The issue is
whether providing these services is so profitable that MS deserves to be in
the top few companies in the US. Is there really enough pricing power in
Azure? Windows used to be strategically important. Outsourced hardware isn't.

~~~
vezycash
I'm not knowledgeable enough to answer authoritatively.

However, buzzwords drive valuations.

Microsoft has a few buzzwords working for it ATM - blockchain, AI, and Cloud,
Intelligent cloud.

------
oculusthrift
I think most people really don’t understand the wide breadth and the real
market of Microsoft as compared to other companies. Just look at these charts
of income sources of each company:

[http://ritholtz.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/11/cotd52602.png](http://ritholtz.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/11/cotd52602.png)

Google is literally just Ads whereas Microsoft is very evenly spread. If it
lost one area itd be fine in the others.

I think people have an exposure bias where they can only comprehend fo the
consumer market. When in reality a lot of the consumer market is free and
Microsoft is making a killing selling to businesses.

~~~
Analemma_
HN in general has an info bubble problem, where it looks to them like
Microsoft is dying because trendy Bay Area startups all use Slack and Google
Docs. But in the rest of the industry, Microsoft is huge and, if anything,
getting stronger over time and not weaker. Microsoft products that HN has
never even heard of, like Dynamics and Host Integration Server, still make
billions in revenue.

~~~
blakes
Exactly. Honestly I've been telling people for the last year to buy MS stock.
They are going for recurring revenue with all their business facing products,
and it's working. The business world, outside of SV apparently, runs on MS
products.

~~~
kokey
I think the most important thing is that the recurring revenue products
actually doesn't suck. I think it's because it's operating in a competitive
market, where switching is easier so it has to work well and also integrate
well with other software. This is different from just leveraging lock in and
just bringing out updates with less tangible benefits to force people to
upgrade.

------
nilsocket
I use only one product of Microsoft, Visual studio code But I use many
products of Alphabet Inc , Google, (servers) Google docs, (servers) Google
drive, (servers) Google keep, (servers) Gmail, (servers) Android, (client)
Maps, (servers) YouTube, (servers) Tez, (servers) Play store, (servers) Google
translate, (servers), ...

Many people don't realise it because almost all of them are available for
free. Google products have very market.

Incase of Google, they have cost of maintenance almost for every product they
develop.

But in case of Microsoft, they have less overhead.

Windows (client) Azure (servers) Xbox (client) Visual studio (client) Visual
studio code (client) SQL (client) MS Office (client) ...

Microsoft also needs to push updates but, less than that of Google.

YouTube consumes too much of bandwidth, Same is the case with Play Store.

