Apple, Google set pace, Microsoft struggles

<Quote>
The primary movers and shakers in the technology world over the past
12 months have been Apple and Google. With its share price up nearly
135% last year and over US$6 billion in revenue, Apple has gone from
strength to strength....

Last year Google reported a more-than 50% gain in third-quarter
revenue to $4.23 billion compared with $2.69 billion in the same time
the previous year. With a number of new services planned for 2008,
analysts predict that shares in the company could reach $1,000 from
the present $680 mark....

Software giant Microsoft has been struggling to persuade users to
switch to Vista, its latest incarnation of Windows, as a number of
compatibility and security issues continue to plague the operating
system. It hopes the release of Service Pack 1 early this year will
help to smooth out the initial glitches and people will slowly start
to move from XP.

Last year was also a period for record security breaches and data
loss, according to industry groups. The loss or theft or personal
information such as credit card and social security numbers has soared
as hackers stay ahead of software security patches and users struggle
to keep up. More is being spent by governments, agencies, companies
and institutions to protect their ever increasing volumes of data with
more elaborate security measures, encryption and firewalls....
</Quote>

[url]http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JA05Dj03.html[/url]

____/ [email]nessuno@wigner.berkeley.edu[/email] on Friday 04 January 2008 21:51 : \____
[color=blue]
> Last year Google reported a more-than 50% gain in third-quarter
> revenue to $4.23 billion compared with $2.69 billion in the same time
> the previous year.[/color]

Just watch out for tomorrow's monopolies, powered by GNU/Linux, funding Free
software products. So far they have at least behaved reasonably well, not
truly betraying any of their partners. Their main mistake was with a video
download (DRM?) service that retired, leaving buyers with compensation
coupons, but no access to acquired videos.

--
~~ Best of wishes

Roy S. Schestowitz | [url]http://debian.org[/url]
[url]http://Schestowitz.com[/url] | Open Prospects | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Tasks: 124 total, 1 running, 123 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
[url]http://iuron.com[/url] - knowledge engine, not a search engine

On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:51:14 -0800, [email]nessuno@wigner.berkeley.edu[/email] scribbled
down:
[color=blue]
> <Quote>
> The primary movers and shakers in the technology world over the past
> 12 months have been Apple and Google. With its share price up nearly
> 135% last year and over US$6 billion in revenue, Apple has gone from
> strength to strength....
>
> Last year Google reported a more-than 50% gain in third-quarter
> revenue to $4.23 billion compared with $2.69 billion in the same time
> the previous year. With a number of new services planned for 2008,
> analysts predict that shares in the company could reach $1,000 from
> the present $680 mark....
>
> Software giant Microsoft has been struggling to persuade users to
> switch to Vista, its latest incarnation of Windows, as a number of
> compatibility and security issues continue to plague the operating
> system. It hopes the release of Service Pack 1 early this year will
> help to smooth out the initial glitches and people will slowly start
> to move from XP.
>
> Last year was also a period for record security breaches and data
> loss, according to industry groups. The loss or theft or personal
> information such as credit card and social security numbers has soared
> as hackers stay ahead of software security patches and users struggle
> to keep up. More is being spent by governments, agencies, companies
> and institutions to protect their ever increasing volumes of data with
> more elaborate security measures, encryption and firewalls....
> </Quote>
>
> [url]http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JA05Dj03.html[/url][/color]

For the most part I agree. Microsoft was "the company" about a decade ago.
Since then they have become complacent and have rested on their laurels
for too long. Some will argue this isn't true because MS diversified into
the Zune, XBox, etc. market. But IMO their offering here are 'weak' and
certainly not best-in-class. I suspect that Microsoft assumed that their
brand and name recognition would be enough to make a mediocre product
successful.

Today Apple has shown that it is quite nimble and continues to set the
standard for excellence. Google... There I see the "next Microsoft" some
day because other than search, Google has basically failed in all of its
other endeavors. (Sans YouTube which was already successful when they
bought it.)


--
Ubuntu Linux
16:52:31 up 135 days, 5:07, 1 user, load average: 0.01, 0.07, 0.08

You are scrupulously honest, frank, and straightforward. Therefore you
have few friends.


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from [url]http://www.teranews.com[/url]

On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 16:57:05 -0500, Jon Nesbit wrote:
[color=blue]
> For the most part I agree. Microsoft was "the company" about a decade
> ago. Since then they have become complacent and have rested on their
> laurels for too long. Some will argue this isn't true because MS
> diversified into the Zune, XBox, etc. market. But IMO their offering
> here are 'weak' and certainly not best-in-class. I suspect that
> Microsoft assumed that their brand and name recognition would be enough
> to make a mediocre product successful.[/color]

I think it's a matter of taste -- didn't Steve Jobs say that Microsoft
had no taste, or bad taste? Their focus isn't, and hasn't been,
"products" in the normal sense of the term for quite some time.


-Thufir

Thufir <hawat.thufir@gmail.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> I think it's a matter of taste -- didn't Steve Jobs say that Microsoft
> had no taste, or bad taste? Their focus isn't, and hasn't been,
> "products" in the normal sense of the term for quite some time.[/color]

the actual quote:

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upzKj-1HaKw[/url]

another steve moment, pin-point accurate as always.