

The Day Microsoft Gave Up World Domination and Settled For Relevance - stickhandle
http://waffle.wootest.net/2014/03/27/the-day-microsoft-gave-up-world-domination-and-settled-for-relevance/

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jmspring
Yawn. Given iPad for Office was started before Satya was CEO, Ballmer made
serious bets on mobile (yes, the WP ecosystem, but something different for
MSFT), _AND_ Gates was on the board, discounting Ballmer and Gates at the
start of the second paragraph is ... I'll say interesting, my gut says "dumb".
Both Gates and Ballmer are on the board and were likely well aware of what's
up _and_ Gates gave up chairmanship to help Satya on technology issues.

I suspect parts of Redmond are still Windows uber alles, but, Microsoft has
been doing non-Windows products for 30+ years.

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xarien
How can someone say that Microsoft is bleeding with a straight face? I know
media likes to skew that way, but it's not like the numbers aren't available.
[https://www.microsoft.com/Investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Tre...](https://www.microsoft.com/Investor/EarningsAndFinancials/TrendedHistory/AnnualStatements.aspx)

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danieltillett
Yes it is still making a ship load of cash every month - I would like to have
a 'bleeding' problem like this.

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mathattack
They are making mounds of cash, but their shareholders haven't been rewarded
for the past 10+ years of it.

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nivla
Wouldn't the increase in share price and payment of quarterly dividends count
as a reward? [1]

[1]
[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT+Basic+Chart](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT+Basic+Chart)

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throwawaymsft
Not when it underperforms the market in general:

[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=%5E...](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=%5EGSPC)

~~~
nivla
I would take a dividend paying stock that is slightly under performing than
the market, than a non dividend paying one. Also everytime a dividend is
issued, the price is adjusted for any possible arbitrage.

If you were to solely depend on S&P500 as the index for performance, I guess
investments in Lockheed Martin would be a waste.[1]

[1][http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=LMT&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=%5EG...](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=LMT&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=%5EGSPC)

~~~
throwawaymsft
As mathattack said, the SPY fund pays out dividends too (from the 500 items in
its basket).

Person A has 100k to invest, and puts it all into Microsoft. He's betting MSFT
will outperform the rest of the industry, and likely all industries.
Presumably he spent some time and effort to research this decision, seeing as
investing in a single stock is risky.

Person B wastes no time, makes no predictions, and just puts 100k in the
general market. He gets the average appreciation and average dividend returns
along the way.

Person B ends up ahead: less risk (one vs. many), better returns, and zero
time in research.

~~~
nivla
Well your assumption that a stock has to outperform a specific market index to
be consider worthy is not true. S&P500 is just an index of 500 capital sorted
hand picked companies.

You made some flawed assumptions:

[1] All companies in the index pay dividends.

[2] MSFT is not one of the companies in the index.

[3] There is only one industry in the index or all industries in the index are
somehow complementary (ie. a loss/gain in one will see a similar loss/gain in
another)

[4] Most industry are related to Technology (Only 62 out of the 500 companies
are in the Technology sector)

Using your example, if the Technology industry outperforms all other industry
within a given period, Person A would enjoy a profit whereas Person B might
walk away with a loss.

Market indices shouldn't be used as the benchmark for the true reflection of a
company's performance/worth. Lockheed Martin is the key example, its one of
the most desired stocks that has been growing steadily and pays one of the
highest dividends, yet it underperforms the market.

~~~
throwawaymsft
A decision to invest in Microsoft needs to be compared against the opportunity
cost: investing in an unbiased sample of companies (you can invest in the
Russel 2000 if you want), for much less risk.

Taking a job to work at McDonalds is a bad decision when the alternative
(picking a random job available to you, essentially) pays more. Even if you
"get paid" while working at McDonalds, it wasn't a worthwhile decision.

(By the way, stocks are absolutely compared against the average market to see
if they are a worthwhile decision. Why do you want to invest in an
underperformer when you can invest randomly and do better? It's like testing a
drug against a placebo.)

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keithwarren
Settled for relevance would indicate they are currently not relevant which is
a mindset only accepted in a few square miles on the planet. How different
would the valley view Microsoft today had they been headquartered in SV
instead of Redmond?

~~~
rimantas

      > Settled for relevance would indicate they are
      > currently not relevant
    

Or it could mean that they are currently relevant but there is a risk of that
going away.

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redact207
I wish Google would adopt the same approach and release some official apps for
WP

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raldi
What's WP?

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Permit
Windows Phone

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ekianjo
For a second I thought WP was for Wordpress :)

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MartinCron
That's the relevance problem the author is talking about...

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pippy
Microsoft is hell-bent on market domination, it's just they're failing to
capture emerging markets. Their attempt at creating tablets, smartphones,
music players, etc have all flopped. Yet each attempt all have the traits of
classic EEE.

Getting office on the iPad isn't an example of Microsoft fighting for
relevance, it's an example of them ensuring market domination at the office.

~~~
nivla
>it's just they're failing to capture emerging markets

If anything MS is actually doing better in the emerging markets especially
with Nokia smartphones.

>Their attempt at creating tablets, smartphones, music players, etc have all
flopped.

What? Given the amount of Windows 8 devices being released, its nowhere close
to being flopped. I wonder what your opinion would then be about Firefox and
Ubuntu OS.

~~~
pippy
Sorry, I should have written 'new markets', not emerging markets.

While Windows 8 is successful, its surface range haven't grabbed significant
marketshare from Apple/Android. Windows 8 in comparison to 7/XP has been a
monumental failure however, forcing 8.1 to backtrack to a more classic
desktop.

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shmerl
Not yet. When they'll allow OpenGL in Xbox, Windows RT and Windows Phone, that
would be the day they'd be really desperate.

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frik
Internet Explorer 11 supports WebGL 1 (based on OpenGL ES 2 which itself is
roughly OpenGL 2 minus v1 API). I read it will be available with Windows Phone
8.1. WebGL on Xbox would be great. (PS4 GUI for example is powered by WebGL.)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL)

~~~
shmerl
They enabled WebGL precisely because of this - they wanted to stay relevant.
Their browser domination is long gone. DirectX however is still very dominant
outside the browser, but it deteriorates pretty quickly. Valve is preparing a
very serious blow for them with Steam Machines and recent push for Linux
gaming. That, together with OpenGL everywhere on mobile outside MS systems
will break DirectX domination for good.

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yuhong
I mentioned DR-DOS for a reason when I was discussing the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco.
And yea, personally I have several things on my wishlist for Satya:
[http://hal2020.com/2014/03/03/satya-shuffles-his-
leadership/...](http://hal2020.com/2014/03/03/satya-shuffles-his-
leadership/#comment-14856)

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stickhandle
Better late than never.

