[CharlieA]

"Microsoft has positions in all the right places."

This.

Microsoft today is still one of the world's biggest companies, with a lot of talented people and considerable inlets into practically every home and office in the developed world. Apple of yesterday grew to eclipse Microsoft in a matter of years--there's no reason Microsoft can't pull off a similar reversal with the right maneuvering of its own considerable resources.

[wpietri]

One of the reasons Microsoft is unlikely to pull it off is precisely that they are one of the world's biggest companies.

When Apple bought NeXT, Steve Jobs had a tight cadre of very talented people who he trusted greatly. It was basically his invasion force. Apple at that point was in crisis, and wasn't particularly big. Market cap: $2 billion. Revenue $7 billion, down from $11 billion two years before. Employees, 9,300. They were doing basically one thing, selling computers, and they were obviously fucking it up.

Microsoft is much larger ($250 billion market cap, 92,000 employees), and they're still fat and sassy on their monopoly rents from Windows and Office. Few there feel any reason to change. The company is so much larger than Apple was that just getting a handle on it is a massive task. Actually turning it around is a very tall order.

Even though Apple was much smaller, it was something like 7 years before things really started to take off. Even if somebody could turn Microsoft around as quickly, how will they get the board and the investors to sit still for such a long period? Jobs could do it because Apple was his baby and Jobs was Jobs. But who has the mojo to do it with Microsoft?

A much more likely path is the one Yahoo is on: slow decline plus musical CEOs as a variety of highly paid people rearrange deck chairs over and over.

[nl]

That might be the obvious path, but there is an obvious counter-example: IBM + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_V._Gerstner,_Jr.

I guess at IBM is was obvious things had to change - it might take a while before MS gets to that point.

[crag]

An excellent example. And every MS exec should study the history of IBM. IBM a huge company managed to turn itself around.

[latch]

Methinks you both might be missing the economic meaning of "lost decade". It essentially refers to a gradual decline. There can be no doubt that, from its shares, it _has_ been a lost decade. Even breaking even would be considered a decline in comparison to other similar investment options.

Also, talking about what Microsoft might do in the future, doesn't magically erase the financial and business criticism of the past. If anything, past performance is a better indicator than "if XYZ can turn around, so can we". Momentum is huge.

As for Microsoft having "positions in all the right places". They have an amazingly strong position in two massive markets. Again, lost decade refers to growth and decline, and unfortunately for Microsoft, neither of these markets is seeing nearly as much growth as other markets. No one is saying that Microsoft isn't making a fortune on desktop and enterprise sales, they are saying that they are failing to capture key markets, such as mobile and tablets. In some markets, like internet or entertainment, their market share isn't horrible, but it's costing them a fortune.

In short, Microsoft's stock price is horrible. If Microsoft thinks the stock is undervalued, they should be buying it back. They are insignificant in a number of important markets, and in those markets where they are a player (but not a leader), they tend to be losing massive amounts of money.

[publicfig]

I do think that last statement depends on how you're looking at each company's products. As often as the debate is set up as "Microsoft v. Apple", they are two different companies that aren't always directly competing. When Apple released the iPod, it didn't directly hurt Microsoft but built up Apple. Even the iPhone, while taking away from Windows Mobile, didn't do much to really stop Microsoft, but once again built a major market in an area that was typically focused in on as specialized. Apple wasn't competing directly with Microsoft at this time, it was competing around them. It wasn't until the iPad that Apple really hit a market where Microsoft was investing resources into with little return, and took potential growth from them.

I think that to say that Microsoft has the chance to retake Apple with the direction they're taking misses the core reason why Apple has become so big. Apple didn't build their company back up through competition, but through creation. That's not a statement saying that Apple was in their own bubble and not taking massive amounts of inspiration from others. It is saying that they as a company defined the market, leaving companies like Microsoft at a step behind no matter what. It's like Apple joining the gaming console market. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony would have way too much of a lead to make it easy, and if they focus on developed markets they are going to be constantly fighting to keep up instead of pushing the fight forward.

[derleth]

> Microsoft today is still one of the world's biggest companies

So's IBM, but who, today, decides not to enter a field because they fear IBM will crush them like MSFT crushed Netscape?

BTW, who has MSFT crushed recently?