Posted on 05/16/2014 11:39:43 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
With two major cave-ins in the past few weeks, Microsoft is screaming at the top of its lungs about how irrelevant it is. If you didn’t understand the fall of Microsoft from powerful monopolist to computing afterthought, let SemiAccurate explain it to you.
For the past few decades, Microsoft has been a monopoly with one game plan, leverage what they have to exclude competition. If someone had a good idea, Microsoft would come out with a barely functional copy, give it away, and shut out the income stream of the innovator. Novell, Netscape, Pen, and countless others were crushed by this one dirty trick, and the hardware world bowed to Redmond’s whims.
The company sucked the life and innovation out of the industry for so long that eventually no one innovated because it was pointless, if the idea was good, Microsoft would end it. Ask Gateway about doing something as basic as making the initial desktop and installation process more user-friendly. Microsoft killed them for the sin of trying to make the user experience better. Everything stagnated as a result of this misuse of monopoly power.
As their marketshare grew to almost 100% of the PC market, Microsoft had to move into new areas for growth. There really wasn’t a new area large enough after Windows and Office to generate the revenues necessary to keep Wall Street’s desire for more sated so Microsoft did what they always do, leveraged their monopoly to extract more and more revenue from each customer.
(Excerpt) Read more at semiaccurate.com ...
By the way, Windows has made the decision to give the platform software away for all devices with a 10” or less screen.
but would it work on a bigger screen?
It’s probably configured to support a 10” or smaller screen only, so transferring to your 14” or 17” laptop wouldn’t work. Also it might be keyed to work only on the unit matching a unique identifier.
bump
MSFT is not my specialty as an investor. I am a biotech investor with macro interests outside BT.
That said, if MSFT is crumbling, this is good for QQQ.
But the question arises, is MSFT crumbling or simply shifting paradigms?
Satya Nadella is moving MSFT from one era to the next (Ballmer was a temporary overseer who brought nothing earthshaking).
Whatever MSFT was in the past is gone...it's over.
MSFT is now in a new period, with new management and new vision.
Investors must not live in the past.
Keep an eye on Nadella...he is going to reinvent MSFT.
This is the end of an era for MSFT and for many in the computing industry.
Apparently the Cloud is going to change the world of computing. This is what Nadella is betting on.
In his short tenure, Nadella has already transformed MSFT...and this is just beginning.
I don't begin to offer my vision as correct...I am merely a watcher at this point (much too old to understand anything but the big picture).
But I suggest that investors might want to keep their eyes on the forest...but still study the trees.
This is one of those times in the history of business that is known as a pivot or paradigm shift.
It is in times like this that great fortunes are made and lost.
I would love to have that phone. I didn’t know it was just AT&T. I am currently with Verizon and have the Lumina 822. It is good, but I would like a bigger screen (old eyes) and a higher resolution camera for panoramic pictures.
That is cool! That might be a game changer.
Must be true if a blog says so. Meanwhile their stock still pays nicely.
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