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Forums - Microsoft - Microsoft Surface is all style and no substance at all

endimion on 22 June 2012
greenmedic88 said:
endimion said:

first stock market value has nothing to do with the size and strength of a company it is merely a representation of what the mass of investors think the company should sell for.... MS has been up there for 3 decades almost.. it's no surprise that 70% of the MS investors are the like of goldman and sachs jp morgan etc... with a p/e at 11 and a track record of being relatively stable msft is to software and electronic market what cocacola is to the soda one.... apple is at best a trend to cash on for short term investment right now... and seriously overstated at that... bottom line even if today it might be more interesting to put money on apple the risk is higher on long term investment than with MS

now about the bold part.... you do realize that the consumer market is peanuts compare to those sectors..... close to a billion computer in service today run on an MS OS.... more than 100 million of pc running windows are sold every year... they still control 80% of the OS market.... 50% of the server market.... for exemple it took less than 18 months for win7 to take over OS X total install base...

to that they have military contracts, they have public sector /gsa contracts, automobile industry contracts etc etc that apple is not gonna touch for decades.... so yes i'll say it again ipad iphone and even mbp or air consumer market is peanuts compare to what MS is covering.... and you'll never replace a fully fledged pc with a ipad at least not in its current form.... we'll see in 10 15 years until then ms has a lot if sunny days in front of them....

I think whatever misplaced love you have for MS has clouded your thinking. 

In a nutshell you believe Apple is overvalued making it a short term investment despite two most recent years to the contrary and that Microsoft is where the growth is at. Or maybe you're saying it's the safe place to invest with little upside for growth. MS is essentially the JNJ of tech. Very little play involved, stable but virtually without surprises in terms of market performance. More like a mutual fund than a growth stock. 

10-15 years? Try as we are debating this, it's currently happening. Why else is Microsoft even bothering with Surface otherwise? Why was Windows 8 so clearly tailored for compatibility with tablet PCs? Do you think Surface is just some sort of vaporware hobby project to keep investors interested or placated? 

Only those who are vehemently opposed to the proliferation of tablet PCs could ignore their increasing use in the workplace. As as they continue to grow in functionality and power, it is the traditional desktop space in which MS has its greatest strengths that will continue to shrink.

i do not love MS i despise apple... and do not believe in their long term strength (meaning 20 years and over) 2 years in the stock market is nothing anything under 15 years is pretty much short term

never said growth was in ms i was saying the safer investment is ms... you're mixing up long term and short term investment and also financial stability and economical growth.... plus we are comparing a major software company with a harware/soft mix aimed mainly at the consumer market.... if you put it in prospective ms with software is generating almost as much revenue than apple is, selling hardware (of course it's simplified image) and still makes more money on the dollar than apple...

i'll say it today apple willl never control the market globally... they technically can't replace the production of all the pc constructor out there and it is not in any actors of the sector best interest.... and they'll get anti trust law suites like ms in the 90s.... to me google is more dangerous for ms than apple...

and yes i do believe tablets is a booming market like smartphones and ms is behind.... but the day were a real shift in the workplace between desktop and lsptops to tablets is decades away... the tablet market of today is comparable to the blu ray versus dvd... there is nothing serious from android or apple that can seriously sustain network infrastructure company require today... i'm not talking about the 50 desk office but major corporation... the day you'll see more tablets in cubicals than desktops is far far away.... they are barely upgrading to win7....

iPad trend and iPhone will pass unless they put something really new out... they lead now because they are pretty much alone.... it already shows on the smartphone side that if you have enough competition they fall behind the one with the most oem (android) so far you are right ms is beat 10 times over on those 2 sector... but i doubt it'll last and if does i still think google is the one to worry about.... as soon as you'll have real competition and the novelty effect will fade away in the consumer minds they won't stick with the most expensive... especially the corporate world... they'll take the most cost to productivity/compatibility efficient any day.... i have yet to see companies beside some really specific sectors (architecs, recording studios, etc) running on a 100% mac infrastructure... i don't know if you tried to have mac servers before but it makes the blue screen of death look like a walk in the park....

so far you have linux and ms largely dominating the server side and ms is still stomping everybody else when it comes to workstation in most work environement and that is nowhere close to change... there isn't a serrious IT guy that can honnestly recommand to switch a professional infrastructure to ipads or android tablets or even macs seriously and say it's the best option for the company... i'd fire the guy in a heart beat.... and that is not love for ms but a hardfact.... so unless they do a windows vista fiasco again with win8 and/or android take off as a coherant ecosystem(and that would require a serious boost in the coherance of the oems pushing the OS, cause android ecosystem is big messy pile of shit right now... meaning when they'll be all running the exact same version/distribution) the trend of ms being a leader in install base is not changing... and once again if it does it will be more than likely in android/google favor way before apple...

but i agree apple right now is a big disturbance in the force... but will it hold in the face of the other actors i doubt it.... the change of leadership and corporate philosphy after jobs death could also temper with their success in the future... in any case nobody can really know what the future holds for us... at least 10 years is needed if not way more... 



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Slimebeast on 22 June 2012

The convo between greenmedic88 and endimion rocks. I'm learning so much.

I do think Apple is the stronger of the two though.

endimion, a question for you about Market Cap. You said it represents what investors think the company should sell for. But doesn't it also indirectly represent a companys size and strength (in simple terms, since they were able to achieve that high Market Cap)? Typically.

I thought that p/e was strongly correlated to Market Cap. If a company has a low p/e and is predicted to keep it for the coming few years, that will be reflected in the Market Cap (as the stock value increases).

All these companies that are infamous for being unprofitable year after year (Nokia, Sony, EA, Ubisoft, AMD), they all have low Market Caps in relation to their yearly revenue.

And vice versa. Companies with projected high profits in the coming few years have high Market Caps compared to their revenue (Apple, Google, Activision, Intel).



LivingMetal on 22 June 2012
Wh1pL4shL1ve_007 said:
LivingMetal said:

Microsoft Surface is all style and no substance at all

By Robert X. Cringely

Microsoft’s Hollywood announcement Monday of its two Surface tablet computers was a tactical triumph but had no strategic value for the world’s largest software company because the event left too many questions unanswered. If I were to guess what was on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s mind it was simply to beat next week’s expected announcement of a Google branded tablet running Android. Microsoft, already playing catch-up to Apple’s iPad, does not want to be seen as following Google, too. So they held an event that was all style and no substance at all.

This is not to say that Microsoft shouldn’t make a tablet and couldn’t make a good one, but this particular event proved almost nothing.

Microsoft announced two tablets but only one was shown. No prices and few specs were announced. The clever keyboard cover mentioned in all stories (including this one) wasn’t functional. No reporters thought to count the ports on the sides of the one tablet available for use and they couldn’t look at their pictures to count them later because they weren’t allowed to take any that showed the sides.

What Microsoft did was play well the mystery card, copying Apple, though I’m not sure how well that will work the next time. To their credit, though, when Google’s tablet is covered here and everywhere next week you can bet the Surface line will get nearly as much comparative play as Apple’s iPad.

Now you See It, Now You Don't

With that out of the way let’s consider what are Microsoft’s expectations for a tablet, which are more diverse than one might expect.

Several stories pointed out that building a Microsoft branded tablet might alienate Redmond’s long list of hardware OEMs. While this is true, I’d suggest you look at it another way. I have over the last 25+ years attended dozens of high-profile Microsoft events for products that never made it to market. Knowing that, my first instinct said this was a Microsoft threat more than anything else.

Look back to Microsoft’s many antitrust defenses and you’ll see they threatened just about every OEM at some point. Bullying is in Microsoft’s DNA. Their legal defense was that they never intended to follow through which, by the way, didn’t work with the judges, either.

So does Microsoft really intend to introduce these tablets? Probably. Could something happen to change that determination? Sure.

One really good reason for announcing such vaporous products under the Microsoft brand is that novelty has dissuaded many commentators from questioning the whole enterprise. Microsoft is being given the benefit of the doubt based on what, a kickstand?

It's About Exchange

So here’s what I’ve been able to figure out about the two Surface machines and where they might be positioned. For one, the ARM-based unit had an nVIDIA Tegra2 processor like most of the Android tablets. The Win8 unit will use an Intel Atom.

It’s puzzling to think how Microsoft will position these tablets. But having scratched my head a lot I’ve decided their story will be that these are the corporate tablets. They’ll run Exchange really, really well, come packed already with Office, and if your IT department is comfortable with Windows, well they’ll be comfortable with these tablets, too.

It’s weak, I know, but that’s the best I could come up with, folks. Sorry.

Microsoft can’t claim these tablets are better than the iPad, and I didn’t see a word to that effect in any of the stories (I wasn’t invited to the L.A. event). They might try to compete on price, but they don’t seem to be doing that either. Nor can they, really, since Apple makes its own CPUs and Microsoft doesn’t. How can Microsoft undercut Apple on price? Maybe by thinning margins, but these tablets aren’t going to leave Redmond with a $100 bill taped to the bottom. Those days are over.

Windows is always playing catch-up to OS X just as these tablets are to the iPads. While we’ll see instances of design brilliance, like that kickstand, not even Microsoft expects their product to be in any way broadly superior to the iPad.

So Microsoft is vying here for second place and the comparison that really counts is with next week’s Google tablet, not the iPad.

http://betanews.com/2012/06/21/microsoft-surface-is-all-style-and-no-substance-at-all/

Personal note: Here is the interesting part...

"Look back to Microsoft’s many antitrust defenses and you’ll see they threatened just about every OEM at some point. Bullying is in Microsoft’s DNA. Their legal defense was that they never intended to follow through which, by the way, didn’t work with the judges, either."

Looks like some things have not changed at least according to this guy.


You forgot that all the anti trust issues were from Bill Gate's rule...


And your point?  Some company policies change and some don't.  Most all company policies can be opened for interpretation.



ROFLMAO on 22 June 2012

I don't think so, Surface is actually looking decent to me, the first time I've been able to say that about a tablet.



happydolphin on 22 June 2012
Alby_da_Wolf said:

This, you win the thread man.

I love me some crappy OS, and I want it in my tablet, I want it in my pants.

No, but honestly. With the pro version I wouldn't even need a laptop, here's to hoping you can plug it into an external monitor (I understood you could from the presentation, but anyone got linkz?).



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Mummelmann on 22 June 2012

I still don't understand why people buy tablets in the first place.



Alby_da_Wolf on 22 June 2012
Mummelmann said:
I still don't understand why people buy tablets in the first place.


They are incredibly useful, behold!

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/03/12/fail-german-grandpa-uses-ipad-as-chopping-board/



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Aielyn on 22 June 2012
.:Dark Prince:. said:

That's all that comes to mind, really.


In the 90s (I think), Microsoft introduced a motion-control joystick. Nobody cares.

In 2006, Nintendo introduced the Wii. The world pisses itself like an excited dog.

In 2009, Microsoft introduced Kinect...

I think you get what I'm saying here... or do you? You probably think I'm arguing in favour of MS deserving recognition, but I'm not. Microsoft's motion-control joystick flopped for a reason. It was Nintendo that actually brought a product set up right for consumers. When MS and Sony then announced their motion controls, it was a response to Nintendo.

In the picture you provide, yes, MS did introduce tablet PCs a long while ago. But it was Apple that made them popular, and MS's Surface is clearly imitating the iPad, with MS's own spin in the form of their OS. If MS were so forward-thinking, why didn't they come up with an interface similar to Windows 8 for their tablets prior to this (their original tablet OS was basically Windows XP with touch functionality)?

Mind you, I don't have any love for Apple. When I buy a tablet, it's going to be an Android-powered tablet by some relatively cheap hardware maker (maybe Kogan), or perhaps a Samsung tablet. But as overpriced as the iPad is, Apple deserve recognition for creating the market for tablets. Just as, even if Sony and MS had made far-better motion control systems (they didn't), Nintendo would still deserve recognition for establishing the market for motion controls.



WiiBox3 on 22 June 2012

The truth is it doesn't matter who is first to bring an idea to market. It is really who brings the first mass marketable version of a product to market that people remember. The iPod was not the first mp3 player, it was the first one that was easy to use, had software that made it easy to get a lot of music for legally and looked slick. Same with Kinect, Same with iPad, Same with Wii, same with Facebook, etc.



endimion on 22 June 2012
Slimebeast said:

The convo between greenmedic88 and endimion rocks. I'm learning so much.

I do think Apple is the stronger of the two though.

endimion, a question for you about Market Cap. You said it represents what investors think the company should sell for. But doesn't it also indirectly represent a companys size and strength (in simple terms, since they were able to achieve that high Market Cap)? Typically.

I thought that p/e was strongly correlated to Market Cap. If a company has a low p/e and is predicted to keep it for the coming few years, that will be reflected in the Market Cap (as the stock value increases).

All these companies that are infamous for being unprofitable year after year (Nokia, Sony, EA, Ubisoft, AMD), they all have low Market Caps in relation to their yearly revenue.

And vice versa. Companies with projected high profits in the coming few years have high Market Caps compared to their revenue (Apple, Google, Activision, Intel).


well what people fail often ti realize is that the stock market is a second hand market.... meaning unless the company dilutes more of theie capital they toych zero of the money exchanged between shareholders when they buy or sell the shares

of course usually that cap is related usually to the size and strength... but while the size is quantitative, strength can be highly subjective... it works a lot like in economics with offer and demand... when i said it's overstated to me they are not worth twice MS..... a lot of that value is based on projection about the future... and to be honnest when it comes to consumer market technology the nyse is a fucking carnival... right now they pretty much think in 10 years everybody will have an iPad a iPhone and a mbp at home....

the best way to see that speculation chunk is to compare that total assets an total equity.... while apple has in billion dollars 116 TA and 76 TE exxon for instance has 349 TA 154 TE.... it is simplified but if you had to strip down the company tomorrow and sell it... just on assets exxon is higher than their own mkt cap (386)... and weighs more money than apple... yet the apple stock trades way higher than both...

what i was saying about p/e was more that ms at 11 plus their track record they are quite solid... apple has one of 14 or 15 i believe... but look at those graph

https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1340395200000&chddm=495006&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:MSFT&ntsp=0

https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1340395200000&chddm=3188605&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:AAPL&ntsp=0

https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1340395200000&chddm=3487720&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NYSE:XOM&ntsp=0

 

(they are suppose to be set on all) and tell me which one appears to be the safest bet for a 20 year investment.....?? apple has been spiking really in the past 3 years or so... expecting that it will rich the sky and stay there is ludicrous... of course this a simplified analysis... but when you look at the big picture you have in one corner the young arrogant bully (apple) and the other the "wise" man with a good bit of experiences positive and negative... (msft)

 

if you want to learn more about all that crasy stuff look on www.investopedia.com and www.seekingalpha.com

 

to go back on the discussion... i also think tablets in general pose an other issue in general to the business world like laptop never replaced desktops really... it because securitywise a more portable device poses a huge problem... if you have corporate secrets and valuable data which most comp do... you don't want people being able to walk out your facility with the computer in their back pocket...

and also at equal specs desktops will always be the cheapest... 

 

so yeah all in all i don't think desktop pc will be majorly replaced by tablets any time soon in the bizz world that is...