| bdbdbd said: @Disolitude: The problem is, that the strategy M$ knows, works only when the competition is in a bad financial shape, or you can drive the competitor into one. Against Apple, Google and Nintendo, who all make good profit and doesn't need large share to make profit, they are practically immune to the strategy M$ is using, so in order for M$ to compete, they need to compete with the product itself (and this is where M$ have never been strong). Since you think M$ could take out Google and Apple, i would like to hear how do you think they would do that? As far as i can see, their attempts have largely failed with integrated Live/MSN search, trying to buy Yahoo, ActiveX for example. To take out Apple, M$ would need to manufacture its own computers and sell them cheap. That would lead to a very bloody pricewar and M$ propably losing a number of its current customers, like HP, Asus or the likes, who'd put out their Linux computers and fight for the price just as well. |
Google they are going after with Live Search. And while its not nearly as successful, they are gaining market share slowly. I work for a pretty large online advertising company that advertises on both...and while buying keywords on google is still the way to go, Live is getting a lot more bookings from us lately. Not the same volume obviously...more like 60% google, 20% live and 20% yahoo. But MS live is going up, and Yahoo is going down when it comes to advertising dollars...and advertising dollars is what this search war is all about.
As far as Apple, I don't think they need to go after the hardware, but the OS. And having apple computers being able to install Windows on each machine is a huge win for MS. They really don't need to take out Apples Macs as they are making them money.
Ipod is hard to take on as Apple customers are quite loyal. Ipod vs Zune is a clear example of a better product losing out to brand name product.
Also, while Iphone is doing phenomenally, one must remember that MS has windows mobile devices sold by many manufacturers, and while I don't have the exact stats, I believe they are still outselling Iphone. I could be wrong though.
