“Microsoft Corp.’s share price may not be the only casualty of the software powerhouse’s surprise earnings miss. It might also hit company morale, becoming the latest gripe of employees who are already disillusioned with product delays and a once high-flying stock that has stagnated for the past three years, analysts said,” Scott Hillis reports for Reuters. “‘There are some folks who have been there for a long time and who will resent the way things are being run as a bureaucracy. And maybe they were there for the big stock run-up and they’re seeing the stock not move now,’ said Matt Rosoff, analyst with Directions on Microsoft. ‘If you think things are not being run well, then yesterday will lend credence to your arguments,’ Rosoff said.”
“Microsoft shares tumbled 11.4 percent to $24.15 on Friday, their biggest one-day drop in 5 years, a day after the company said earnings would be hurt by increased spending to stay abreast of competition such as Google Inc.,” Hillis reports. “A company spokesman had no immediate comment on employee morale. Investors treated the move as the latest stumble by the Redmond, Washington-based company, which last month said it would delay the release of the next versions of its cash-spinning Windows operating system and Office software package. Minimsft, a popular blog run by a Microsoft employee who advocates a drastic slimming-down of the company, lamented the results, exclaiming: ‘Yee-ouch! Right in the kisser!’ Wryly remarking on the idea that Microsoft could eventually pull out of the doldrums, the anonymous author wrote: ‘It is always just a few quarters out. For what, the last five years?'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Schadenfreude… too… intense… here… quote…
How are monopolies lost? Think about it. Who usually ends up running the show? The sales guy… Look at Microsoft, who’s running Microsoft? Right, the sales guy. Case closed. – Steve Jobs, October 12, 2004 (source)
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I know this will sound like blashphemy on this Mac site, but Microsoft is far from dead.
In fact what I read, Microsoft is gearing up for a major offensive and marketing blitz for X-Box and Vista. So buying the stock might be a good investment right now.
“If anything happens to Microsoft, anything at all, I swear to you I will get very choked up. Honestly. There could be tears.”
How times change!
Back on the 5th September 2004, when I started keeping track of such things, Apple had a market cap equivalent to around 4.57% of MSFT’s $292 billion.
Now, 600 days later, that figure has changed so that Apple’s valuation of $59.73 billion represents 23.93% of MSFT’s plummeting $249 billion price (it’s worth noting that, as recently as 9/12/05, MSFT had recovered earlier losses and was back at $296 billion).
How long before we can start to use the word “beleagured” in connection with Dancing Monkey Boy’s jack-of-all-trades empire?
True color finally reviewed . They are simply not innovative. They innovate by other people’s innovations.
Miscrofsoft, inspired by Apple .
…..that’s good news!!
“In fact what I read, Microsoft is gearing up for a major offensive and marketing blitz for X-Box and Vista. So buying the stock might be a good investment right now.”
Ok, no doubt that is true. That will bring in some “true believers” to buy X-Boxes and Vista. Maybe lots, which will mean lots of dollars for Microsoft.
But the first thing that popped into my head was my experience of a few years in real estate.
Seller insists that his house is worth 20% more than what a very detailed market analysis shows it could probably sell for.
I show him the evidence of that, but he insists and since I don’t want to lose the listing, I agree (my out of pocket expenses) to advertise the house for the amount that he insists upon.
Guess what happens. The number of phone calls about the house continues continue to decrease in spite of the advertising blitz.
In spite of? Maybe not. As I told him, since we advertised the house at 20% higher than market value, EVERYBODY knows we are trying to sell an overpriced house! Big Surprise! Moved the price to comparable houses in the neighborhood and sold it in a week. Customer now happy but burned up a month on the calendar.
It pays to advertise a good product.
What does that say about the “not so good” product? Might make the meter jump a little, but have to question what Vista ads will do compared to what they could do if the public thought it was a great product, but the evidence indicates that they probably won’t given the previous history of Windows. Kids, and “adult” kids love XBox, so it will work for that.
It will be interesting
I made my bet — the biggest bet by far that I have ever made — on AAPL a long time ago, based on Steve Jobs vision and unrelenting character. It has paid off. And I am convinced that this is just the start of Apple’s rise. I could be wrong, not being a fatalist. But Microsoft’s incompetence at anything creative was also part of my confidence that Apple could eventually prevail.
The MS death spiral is now becoming obvious to even the dull normal IQs out there.
MDN: Can you please stop quoting the sound bite from SJ? You people sound like idiots repeating that stupid line.
Mal: Nice reference to Serenity. I dig!
M$ problem is it’s size.
MCCFR – Feel free to start using “beleaguered” to describe M$ right away. No waiting necessary!
apple 2205
revenues 14 B
profit 4 B
Income 1 B
dell 2005
revenues 56 B
profit 10 B
income 4 B
microshaft 2005
revenues 40 B
profit 33 B
income 12 B
LinuxGuy – You’re not wrong.
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Moved the price to comparable houses in the neighborhood and sold it in a week. Customer now happy but burned up a month on the calendar.
A month and a few thousand wasted to take a chance at up to 20% more profit chance seems like a wise decision to me, some wait years.
Should have a clause in your contract to minimize your loses though.
“The winds of change are blowing, ther’ blowin you and me!”
I think I’ll Fire Myself.
1. Longhorn rots.
2. Vista dismantled, disemboweled, and delayed (again and again).
3. Internet Explorer barely better.
4. Origami flopped.
5. Future expectations? Ambiguous at best, dismal at worst.
Xbox stands as the lone survivor of Microsoft products. The mess at Microsoft is due to failed leadership. Don’t be surprised if shareholders demand a cull of top executives.
The MS death spiral is now becoming obvious to even the dull normal IQs out there.
Nice words, too bad it’s not reality.
I’m no M$ fanboi, but M$ really has no competition in the business space. Apple has nothing there, states they are a “consumer product company”.
Linux is looking good on the server, still sucks on the desktop, too geeky, there is too many distros and no developers.
M$ has already launched it’s famous “embrace, extend and extinguish” campaign against open source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
“They don’t want the stock to go up. Why? If the stock goes up, the company risks losing more talent to retirement.”
Right, very talented bunch here as the stock prices prove. Seems that Microsoft employees spent more time working on their stock portfolios than developing successful products. I suppose that these people lost focus on their reason for being employed, unless that reason was exclusively attainment of wealth at the detriment of the consumer. Oops, the bubble burst, eh, ladies and gents?
“A month and a few thousand wasted to take a chance at up to 20% more profit chance seems like a wise decision to me, some wait years.”
The odds of getting 20% above market value in any competitive market these days when buyers know what houses are worth is slightly above 0%. The sellers hold out the hope that an undeducated buyer will pay 20% extra, but that is rare, and the buyer would have to pay the extra percentage in selling price up front because no reputable lender will loan an extra percentage above market value. If they did, that would radically increase their risk of having to foreclose.
If you have to wait years, it just shows you are trying to get too high a price compared to the value of the house, or car , or computer, or whatever. But then maybe you really don’t actually care about selling the house, just hoping to “snag” a fish rather than actually catching one.
Sorry about turning this into a real estate discussion, just trying to make a point about advertising. Advertising a bad product just shows more people that you have a bad product. Advertising a great product just works.
Hmm, where have I heard, “it just works” before?
Al Jazzoo:
Apple’s emphases on “consumer products” represent the tactics and strategy of effectual guerilla warfare. Establishing a solid base of Mac users in the home and in the school will likely develop a dependable and experienced cadre of business people, instructors, industrialists, scientists, etc. I reckon that a child and a student raised and nurtured in a Mac environment will be more likely to remain a loyal and experienced Mac employer and employee.
Remember, the objectives are to be agile (receptive, responsive, and adaptable), mobile (inventive, daring, and elusive), and hostile (focused, assertive, and confident). Oorah. Now, let’s go get some.
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0129.pdf
Even if Microsoft is on the way out, it’ll be a slow decline over several decades due to the sheer inertia and installed base of Windoze. Personally I’d be happy if Apple gets up to 10-15% market share and holds there – just enough to stay viable and remain innovative.
To the clueless majority, Vista will be good enough (and the few who’ve heard of the Mac might even think Windoze has caught up again). Then again, maybe Apple’s new TV campaign will edumacate the masses.
kenh,
Your looking for the quick sale because sales have been slow lately for you and you rather have something than nothing.
You would be my second contract realtor.
maczealot,
Your faith blinds you from reason.
If Apple announced they would start selling Vista on all new Mac’s as standard and left a demo copy of Mac OS X on the drive, you would call it the greatest switcher campaign Apple ever greated.
Al Jazzoo:
You need to consider exercising deliberate thinking before stating what you cannot possibly comprehend.
“Everyone hears only what he understands.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Ignorance is the mother of presumption.” Marie de Gournay
“Your resolve is the measure of the faith in your capacity to achieve.” Unknown
Here is Microsoft’s secret plan :
-Visa as a consumer OS to compete against Apple,
– A separate really secure Enterprise only (totally new code) OS .
You can’t expect on OS to do both very well.
The vista version will be the copy of OS X with a copy of the I life package all integrated with a copy of Office- ‘personal edition’… Bundled with a dell for $799. The software will be ‘typical’ miserable software on the cheapest hardware, so the masses will embrace it because of the prices and features, not how well they work together…
The enterprise OS -restricted to Organizations, not to the general public. It may even be unix based, but will have really tight security, and written from the ground up so that banks, insurance companies, schools, research labs, Government Bureaus etc. will want to stay with Microsoft. It better be good or they might really lose the war on this one. I think they know that, and are working very hard in silence (taking a book from Apple)
I know a lot of people think Microsoft sucks, but a lot of people that actually work for Microsoft are sincere, hardworking, and very smart. Its the way they are channeled by the organization that makes the product so unappealing to us Mac users. I know I HAVE to use Microsoft product everyday. Over the years I have learned to make it work for me. Applications like Excel and Word are reliable. Clunky and Cumbersome, but reliable. I don’t have that with the Mac which is why I have only owned Apple computers since 1986.- a IIC was my first computer…
Mac Os is consumer only. And Microsoft will compete here with Apple. p OS X isn’t ready for enterprise – yet.
So any comment on my two software theory? ‘It won’t be XP on every computer this time around”
grognard, what the hell are you talking about? Doesn’t “enterprise” mean making money? Along with millions of others, I’ve been making money with Macs for many years. What do you do for a living? Sorry you have to use Microsoft products. Sucks to be you.