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From the article you linked us to:

"One Apple product, something that didn’t exist five years ago, has higher sales than everything Microsoft has to offer. More than Windows, Office, Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, and every other product that Microsoft has created since 1975. In the quarter ended March 31, 2012, iPhone had sales of $22.7 billion; Microsoft Corporation, $17.4 billion."

Think about it: "one Apple product". That's not good. Especially for Apple, because, if that one product's sales start to dwindle and the iPHone falls from grace, it's back to HTC-type profits and market-cap for Apple. Heavy dependence on one product can be very damaging to a company, even if the product does well for years.

On the other hand, while MS might not be as profitable, they do have the best and largest portfolio or products in the IT market, for corporate and consumers. The huge diversification of products that MS has, is a firewall to failure that could come with dependence on one or two products, which is how Google and Apple have operated. Microsoft is in a much better position to survive a downturn in any part of the tech market, than Google or Apple.

While MS might not have the "coolness" factor working for them as do Google and Apple, it is operating with a much more mature approach to being a major player in all sectors of the tech market. Neither Google nor Apple can touch MS when it comes to diversification and number of products. And, heck, even WP8 is getting closer to becoming second in the smartphones battle, ahead of iPhones. Apple may be flying high right now, but they're also closer to becoming another Palm than any other company out there.

Oh, btw, no, iPhone sales *haven’t* declined, they’ve increased. The overall smartphone market has grown, so percent of the market has declined per se, and thanks to competition profit margins have declined a bit, but the iPhone is still enormous, users still stand in line for upgrades, and the used market for iPhones is strong. Wow, what a terrible problem to have.

Think about it: “one Apple product”. That’s not good.

When I get commercial loans for expansion the 1st question is, how diverse is my companies income stream? Extremely important to the banker that we have sales to more than just one distributor.

“On the other hand, while MS might not be as profitable, they do have the best and largest portfolio or products in the IT market, for corporate and consumers...

While MS might not have the “coolness” factor working for them as do Google and Apple, it is operating with a much more mature approach to being a major player in all sectors of the tech market.”

I’ve stuck with MS since 3.1 but Win8 is my breaking point. After 2 months of having a worthless computer, I finally broke down and bought my first IPad.

MS turned me into an Apple customer. They have nobody to blame but themselves.

It it weren't for Office, no one-- and I mean no one-- would use Windows.

I just spent three hours fixing a performance problem on Win7 yesterday due to some Microsoft installed "features" that behaved indistinguishably from malware.

There were thousands of complaints about related issues on MS' website without a hint from MS about how to fix it.

Sorry, but most of Microsoft's products are a POS. They're great for 'toy' applications that you can quickly prototype something with-- but try a real world app with load and you'll spend an endless amount of time trying to figure out how to 'tune' Windows because you have no idea what MS' software is doing (or failing to do) behind the scenes.

Think about it: "one Apple product". That's not good. Especially for Apple, because, if that one product's sales start to dwindle and the iPHone falls from grace, it's back to HTC-type profits and market-cap for Apple. Heavy dependence on one product can be very damaging to a company, even if the product does well for years.

Don't forget the tablet (iPad) - a product that has yet to reach maturity. It will soon be outselling PCs and phones combined. People will soon have tablets in every room in the house including the car.

Rumor has it that Apple has another product in the pipeline that will create a whole new industry. Most likely a large screen that will have embedded electronics that will redefine the television set and make obsolete set-top boxes like Tivo, Roku and cable boxes, etc.