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Comment by venomsnake | Hacker News Reader

The speed with which one technological company can fall is amazing as history has shown time and time again. According to joel spolsky Excel 4 made lotus 1-2-3 obsolete virtually overnight and that was the beginning of the end for them.

The fact that MS is strong now means nothing in the long and even midterm.

The total share of world computing that Microsoft controls now is lower than in the 90s. They have trouble getting good products out except in Server and Azure divisions. They are bleeding developer loyalty and they are turning into Apple style control freaks without having the charm of Apple.

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> Excel 4 made lotus 1-2-3 obsolete virtually overnight

Isn't that the benefit of being "spread thin" though? Xboxone might die but at least they have the other stuff.

Actually, their substantial diversification beyond Windows means that it's very, very unlikely Microsoft is going to fall (easily or quickly). Microsoft could lose the entire consumer Windows business and be just fine (despite the hit their stock would take), particularly as they keep growing in other sectors while Windows becomes less important by the day (and is clearly done growing as a business). Consumer Windows is about 1/3 of Microsoft's profit these days.

Apple by comparison gets about 3/4 of its profit from the iPhone. Google is even worse, 95% of their profit comes directly from search.

The vast majority of Microsoft's profits come from Office. Windows makes a little bit, and everything else loses money.

This is fundamentally incorrect. Only Online Services Division (Bing) loses money. Everything else makes money, and Windows definitely makes more than "a little bit."

Operating Income by Division FY13 Q3: Windows: $3.46 B Server and Tools: $1.98 B Online Services: -$262 M (loss) Business: $4.1 B Entertainment and Devices: $342 M

It is interesting that people perceive so many businesses at Microsoft as "failing" even when they have healthy income and growth year after year.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earn...

Even though Xbox (Entertainment) is now making a small profit, they've got a long, long way to go before it recoups the vast investment/losses of the early days:

http://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsofts-xbox-division-h...

> The speed with which one technological company can fall is amazing as history has shown time and time again.

I disagree. The speed with which companies relying on a single product can fall has been shown again and again. Companies which are diversified have lasted much longer.

Lotus is gone, Borland is gone, Apple almost died -- but Microsoft are still around.

Microsoft are no longer the absolute masters they used to be (and that IBM were before them). But they, and IBM, demonstrate there is "a lot of ruin in a great company" (to paraphrase Smith).

But Microsoft have single product. While they do sell it from 5 different department is combines to one interwoven whole.

That is great on the rise but can be terrible when every customer lost means losing network effects. The more google apps/ Libre gain traction the less valuable the windows desktop becomes. The less valuable the desktop - the server becomens less valuable and from there the DB.

Computer ecosystems are like the real stuff - they can implode with a few strokes of stupidity and bad luck but are hard to be wiped out. And microsoft have somewhat bad track record in the last few years on quality decisions. There is no future in which there does not exist sizable deployments of microsoft software.

But also metric of a company is their relevance. MS lost their ability to be trendsetters and are playing catching up.

Unless there is strong change of direction coming I think that MS will have their soviet union moment in the next few years - they will vomit a lot of territory and they will still be huge and powerful afterwards, but just not among the superpowers.

If Microsoft has a single product, so do Apple and Google.

Your summation of Microsoft's position is way off. Microsoft was never much of a trend setter. They tend more to come into an established business and try to dominate it and they do that well.

Microsoft has 12 billion dollar businesses. Apple has 6. Google has 1 or 2 I think (although I can't find a source for that).

Sources: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-billion-dollar-bus...

http://www.mediabizbloggers.com/group-m/Is-Radio-Apples-Seve...

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