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Comment by us0r | Hacker News Reader

2007 - $51.12 billion

2013 - $77.85 billion

I'd love to die like that.

People were saying that about BlackBerry right up until a few years ago. Where are the true mobile versions of Office or Outlook? When will Windows 8+ become anything other than a painful mess for ordinary users? Will anyone ever ship a Metro app anyone cares about?

The old Microsoft isn't part of the computing platform of the future, mobile and services, but the server division is. For the division Nadella is from, their competition aren't Apple or Yahoo or even Google, it's Rackspace and AWS. For them Apple etc are customers and allies. The old Microsoft is dead in the water, but can a new Microsoft fully emerge from its shadow to take a valuable place in the future of the computing industry?

Do they need a mobile version, really? I wouldn't use it at work, and we all seem to get along with the native versions just fine. It's the corporate clientele that pays the big bucks for these products, and I'm not aware of them clamoring for a mobile version.

(PS, I've only actually worked at startups which have grown into larger companies. At no time did I or anyone else I was aware of feel the need for mobile Excel.)

That's true. Although the parent is right that everyone hates Windows 8+ and nobody cares about Metro apps in truth, the big money is made in the enterprise space. Windows Server, SQL Server and Exchange are huge. People think that everyone could install a Linux box and migrate but it isn't that easy. Give a Windows admin a Linux box and see how dumbfounded he will be.

The iPad made a splash in the consumer world and perhaps in the BYOD world a bit but you don't really see people doing real work on them or ditching their desktops to use them. Great for consuming, not for creating (unless you enjoy struggling). I think as long as Microsoft caters to the enterprise market and move away from attempting to force a mobile UI on a desktop, things will go swimmingly for them.

Having said that, Windows 8 on a Surface is a joy to use! Just not on a desktop without having to fling your mouse all over the place to get things to appear.

As long as businesses keep buying Office for desktop, does that matter? Is there a mobile platform that is displacing Office or Outlook/Exchange that they're failing to compete with? http://www.tannerhelland.com/4993/microsoft-money-updated-20...

maybe so, but did microsoft own indian, and us politics as much as microsoft?

Their revenue numbers were impressive but how much of that change was from new products and customers and how much was from increasing licensing costs to existing customers?

Please don't bring facts into this discussion.

Giving the inflation levels of the years in between, I wont say they have grown so much.

Adjusted for inflation they started at 59,03$bn. That's not startup levels of growth for obvious reasons but the growth is very real.

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