“Look no further than Microsoft… the software giant’s shares slid as investors focused on the company’s long-term campaigns: capturing a piece of the smartphone market with its Windows 7 phones and coming up with an answer to the iPad,” Sloane reports. “‘The issue dogging Microsoft’s stock is that until they have a more formidable presence in the smartphone or tablet market it will be very difficult for investors to pay up,’ said Kirk Materne, an analyst with Evercore Partners. Apple was the first major player in the tablet market with last year’s release of the iPad, and has sold 13 million of the devices.”
Sloane reports, “With more and more consumers replacing their PCs with tablets, Microsoft’s position as the dominant software company is in jeopardy if it doesn’t tap that market, analysts said. The company has yet to unveil a tablet. Its position in the smartphone sector is not much stronger. Apple’s impact was also felt yesterday at AT&T, the one-time exclusive iPhone service provider. As it will soon lose its exclusive grip on the iPhone, the company yesterday predicted full-year profits in 2011 would fall short of Wall Street expectations.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lydell C.” for the heads up.]
Where is the horse and the rider..
There is a New Sheriff in town, and his Name is “Steve Jobs” so u Better get used to it.
(Hear that Monkey Boy)
Microflush. Going…going….gone!
“With more and more consumers replacing their PCs with tablets, Microsoft’s position as the dominant software company is in jeopardy if it doesn’t tap that market, analysts said. The company has yet to unveil a tablet. Its position in the smartphone sector is not much stronger.”
Do people that write these articles realize that Microsoft is predominantly a SOFTWARE company. Their entire strategy has been to write software that will run on a wide variety of devices and trumpet that as freedom of choice for the consumer. They have gone out of their way to chastise Apple’s method of integrated product development as being “closed” and bad for consumer choice. Yet they continue to try and play both sides of that fence.
Every time MS releases hardware it’s just more vindication for the approach Apple has taken to integrated product development, not to mention it weakens MS a little more as they get out of their core business model.
@ MacMental
Thrown into the sea…
Add Nokia
Microsoft has an office suite that will be relevant for a fairly long time. All hardware ventures will die.
The profitability curve has a negative slope and I see no change until it hits zero!
Anyone miss the “Beleaguered Apple…” headlines?
Apple is reaping the benefits of all the hard work and innovation they put in after everything went down the tubes after 9/11. While other tech companies retrenched and rode the status quo, Apple laid the foundations of their current success, and no wonder the competition can’t catch up. It took Apple a lot of time to put this together.
MDN, I think crumbs would have been more appropriate than worms.
The M$ logo should include stinklines. I don’t deserve to have this much fun.
http://themacadvocate.com/2010/12/21/microsofts-leadership-a-whos-that-of-corporate-titans/
Meanwhile, over on engadget, both posters and commenters are begging MS to “revive the Courier.”
How can you revive something that never existed?
Honestly, the amount of dumb out there is staggering.
Godzila! King Kong! Incredible Hulk! T-Rex!
Apple logo is everywhere in commercials and movies and Starbucks and Airports. Even when on TV they cover up the Apple logo, we all know it’s a MacBook Pro
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
No one can ignore the giant soon to be number #1 in the World!
BUY AAPL!!!!!
@Macromancer
I completely agree! Why can’t M$ get off their asses and write great software for Apple, Inc.? I mean, they can’t go wrong with Apple’s SDK, right?
Peace.
Thought it was 14.7 million iPad’s sold in 9 mos through Dec 25. They’ve probably sold AT LEAST another 1 million since then, so the New York Post is really 2.7 million off. That’s a big difference. Fact check.
@The MacDaddy-Oh!
The answer to that is Pride. Of course they could use Apple’s SDK, but that would be an admission to their utter failures and lack of true innovation. They’re “True Believers” in their perceived sanctity of all that is Windows. Besides, monkey boy would never let that happen. He’s the high priest of M$ and he’d never be able to bring himself to use Control Alt Delete on his own company.
I really hope they do have another go at the hardware side of things. Turning Courier vaporware into reality will almost certinly result in another xbox rrod fiasco except this time bag-sized.
It will be like where they end up replacing every device ever sold again out of their own pocket. The thousands of toasted xboxes are on eBay every day of the week are testament to Microsofts cluelessness when it comes to making gadgets. No wonder the executive responsible for xbox bailed out this week.
MSFT has been flat to barely negative for the last decade! Why would anyone think it would go up? Delusional…
Right on the money, Macromancer.
@Buster: Where have you been for the last 10 years? Apple’s hardware profitability curve is not declining. M$’s Office is only relevant for as long as they can keep changing it periodically to break compatibility with the free alternatives like Open Office. M$ is doomed.
If I were CEO of M$ tomorrow I’d appoint a team charged with keeping us afloat for 5 years while everybody else drops everything and starts designing a new GUI/OS based on unix. It’s their only hope, but it should have happened 10 years ago.
There are a couple of M$ applications that I would love to see in the Apple world.
One is Streets and Trips, which was excellent and reasonably priced. On an iPad with real GPS it would decimate the printed map world. Much more useful than the talking TomToms and Garmin Gabblers, IMHO. Multi-location route optimization that the Google-based maps app can’t touch, with freedom from the cloud, which can be turned off at any time, witness Egypt. This type of app is missing from the Apple world.
The other is M$ Flight Simulator. A good, solid functioning app with a lot of functionality. Again, a category missing from the Apple universe.
Both of these should be relatively easy to bring to the Apple world since the conversion to Intel processors (I know the iProducts don’t use Intel). M$ needs to decide it can make money with software applications and stop worrying about OS world domination.
@MacMental
Where is the horn that was blowing… Ah. Love that LOTR.