dallas said:
rocketpig said:
dallas said:
Somewhat unimportant for apple perhaps |
Or, more likely, an important point for fanboys to argue about on internet forums. Businesses offer services and sell products to make money. Apple is much better at making money than Google. It's nice for Google to have a huge slice of the market but it hasn't turned into enormous profits for them compared to Apple's closed strategy and smaller marketshare. If Windows 8 Phone becomes a player in the high-end phone market (and here's hoping they do), Google could see their high profit phones marginalized as a third option becomes viable for high-usage (and therefore, high-profit) customers. It's very possible that by offering an open and slow to update operating system that depends largely on carrier support to code/update the OS, Google has positioned themselves to dominate the lowest profit phones. That's not a good thing. I'm not saying that's what is going to happen but it's a real possibility. Google's OS strategy has its flaws, just as Microsoft and Apple have their own flaws.
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Well Microsoft is moving to a new era for the company as its products are going to be focused more and more on tablets and mobile. The issue for Microsoft is that it has basically been given a free lunch with the pc market bc the monopoly that it has long enjoyed isnt too difficult to maintain, but now it is moving to a more competive market as the pc business loses to mobile and tablets. I'm not giving you a doom and gloom speech at all, but regardless it should be getting less profit margin than it has simply bc it has to work harder.
And the analyst expectations are in line with this, anyway. Would you like me to post some revenue expectations, eps estimates, etc? I can give you analyst expectations of why the boys in Redmond just won't be as hot as they have been.
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I've been following this game for a long time. I'm well aware that Microsoft has a long, difficult road in front of it if they crack this market. I've followed MS through four major OS reboots in the past decade. If they continue down that path, they will continue to marginalize themselves.
On the other hand, MS still has a few things going for it:
1. Nokia. Outside of Apple, they're the best hardware manufacturer on the market. Sleek, elegant design packaged into some mighty fine hardware.
2. The best UI in the mobile space. Win8 is the most forward-thinking UIX on the market by a country mile. Now it's a matter of getting it in front of eyeballs. Can they do that? Dunno.
3. Windows still carries a lot of power. The overwhelming majority of businesses run on Windows. If MS can integrate its mobile offering more fully than Google and Apple, they can (once again) lock up enterprise.
Can Microsoft turn this to their advantage in coming years? I don't know and I'm skeptical, if only because they have blundered through the mobile space for so long. But if they pull their quite considerable assets together and organize their offerings, they're still in a position to grab a large portion of the market.
