Apple Overtakes Microsoft in Market Value

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

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The second Steve Jobs goes down, Apple is going in the toilet.

I wouldn't say they're gonna go in the toilet but the company will definitely start to decline. As much as I think Jobs is a colossal tool, he is a large reason for the company's continued success IMO cause people buy into his hype and his leadership.

I also think that Apple cannot continue to "innovate" and without this, in no way are they going to be able to maintain their growth and position.

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

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What exactly does Microsoft have in its hands besides an O/S?
An O/S, Office, and a large email system. The 2 former dominate corporations globally and will rarely change regardless of how many other options are thrown their way.

Originally Posted by haganah

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An O/S, Office, and a large email system. The 2 former dominate corporations globally and will rarely change regardless of how many other options are thrown their way.

That's without getting into the more technical assets outside the consumer market.

wouldn't it be hilarious if Apple moved into the consulting and business solutions space

all style no substance

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

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What exactly does Microsoft have in its hands besides an O/S?
The Office suite, the new windows phone, Xbox, project natal, microsoft games, hotmail, msn messenger, bing. Not to mention the biggest R&D budget of any company in the world. I certainly won't laud them for innovation throughout the 90s, nor competing effectively in the 00s, but the better Apple and Google get, the more Microsoft seems realize it needs to up its game to match.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

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The second Steve Jobs goes down, Apple is going in the toilet.
Actually, Jobs will be the reason Apple tanks. His obsession with closed architecture in an open-source world will eventually undo him as Google firsts beats Apple in mobile software, then in cloud computing. BTW the FTC is considering investigating Apple for uncompetitive practises. Visions of things to come.

Well to be fair, I do like Bing and I practically live in Office 2007 14 hours a day. I have heard Windows 7 is very good as well. One wonders how good it would be without Apple and Google as competition.

Also, while I often disagree with him on some issues, Gates seems to be a genuine philanthropist trying to make a difference.

Originally Posted by holymadness

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Actually, Jobs will be the reason Apple tanks. His obsession with closed architecture in an open-source world will eventually undo him as Google firsts beats Apple in mobile software, then in cloud computing.

Hmm, I wonder. Could it be Apple's closed systems also have a beneficial effect in easing service for Apple's customers and limiting Apple's expenses in that area? I think so.

But I generally like open systems, all else being equal.

If you look at the history of computing, the somewhat open systems we have now are anomalous. All successful systems in the past have been closed, and as Apple's showing, you can be wildly successful today with a closed system.

Open systems are overrated, unreliable, and their costs are often vastly underestimated. Commercially, no open system has yet succeeded.

--Andre

Originally Posted by holymadness

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Actually, Jobs will be the reason Apple tanks. His obsession with closed architecture in an open-source world will eventually undo him as Google firsts beats Apple in mobile software, then in cloud computing. BTW the FTC is considering investigating Apple for uncompetitive practises. Visions of things to come.
Is this a joke? You praise Google and then mention uncompetitive practices? Seriously? You realize they were just investigated over admob and apple saved them right? And this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/te...gy/23goog.html Yeah...visions of things to come alright.

Originally Posted by haganah

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An O/S, Office, and a large email system. The 2 former dominate corporations globally and will rarely change regardless of how many other options are thrown their way.
+1 They've been making serious inroads in the database market too. Oracle and IBM are still tops, but they had a big head-start and MS has made impressive progress in that market.

Originally Posted by A Y

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If you look at the history of computing, the somewhat open systems we have now are anomalous. All successful systems in the past have been closed, and as Apple's showing, you can be wildly successful today with a closed system. Open systems are overrated, unreliable, and their costs are often vastly underestimated. Commercially, no open system has yet succeeded. --Andre
a huge +1 Initial costs are usually lower, but for on-going costs they are frequently higher. People forget that cost doesn't just include licensing, but also the salaries of the people you need to maintain the system and the cost of a service going down. These open-source systems rarely have support ecosystems similar to the ones Cisco and Microsoft provide, and a big concern is being able to find the expertise to manage your systems. Cisco and MS both have that covered a lot better that most open-source options, and that's a huge advantage for them. The geeks that go on and on about open-source are rarely the same people that administer enterprise or even medium-sized networks. i've used open-source products in production, but for a very specific need. I purchased a support contract but the level of service wasn't anywhere near what I got from Cisco or MS. When I encountered a couple bugs i found in the system, nobody was really able to help me and I had to find my own solutions as a workaround. I'd personally be very hesitant to go that route again. A little off-topic, but MS is really hitting on all cylinders lately. Server 2008 is a really outstanding product. The lengths to which they have gone to make getting better and more information out of the system, for compliance or reporting purposes is pretty impressive. The whole product is extremely refined. It also has way better security and you can even install the OS as a stripped-down command-line version of windows called Server Core. MS estimates that 80% of their patches revolve around UI aspects, so running server core really increases stability and decreases the attack surface for vulnerabilities. Of course, you can use the gui tools on other servers to remotely administer server core machines if you don't want to use the command line. It's all pretty neat.

Originally Posted by ama

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Unlikely

History disagrees. How much panic happened when he was sick last year?

Originally Posted by A Y

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Commercially, no open system has yet succeeded.

Except for the personal computer. They have sold a few of those.

Originally Posted by binge

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Except for the personal computer. They have sold a few of those.

Yeah, I had a huge WTF is he talking about moment when I read it but then I figured if someone could make a statement like that it wasn't worth discussing.

Originally Posted by binge

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Except for the personal computer. They have sold a few of those.

The one where people had to reverse-engineer the BIOS, and run at least 3 different proprietary OSes on the path to success?

--Andre