Robert Pogson

Forbes has an article about M$ stalling, not growing. We know their revenue is actually growing but it is passive, waiting on a ramp up in sales of PCs. Actually personal computers are as popular as ever but they are switching from x86 to ARM and getting smaller and cheaper, even hiding in keyboards and smart phones. The thesis is that M$ has missed the boat in mobile and plans on the table are too little and too late.

see Forbes – Why Not All Earnings are Equal; Microsoft has the Wal-Mart Disease

TFA is mostly about investment but it touches on the waves of technology. M$ has created a cash-cow for “PC”s but cannot transfer that monopoly to new technology because they have no lock-in on technology that is already widespread and growing rapidly. There is no IBM granting them a monopoly on the PC. Google is not going to sell out to M$. ARM is not going to sell out to M$. Nokia seems to have sold out but they will experience the stall together. The software-patent suits are defensive. The proliferation of “partners” is defensive. The huge investments in R&D is very inefficient, defending the last decade’s technology. M$ has taxed that so hard that the industry is moving on to FLOSS on ARM to avoid the tax. Nothing M$ can do will bring back the monopoly. This year is likely the end of it. The world is exploding with new technology but none of it comes from M$.

I know there are commenters here who believe M$ saved IT by providing a unified platform everyone could build on but that is an illusion. M$ stifled the market for more than a decade and contributed little to the growth of it. Taxes do not stimulate growth. The $billions spent on M$ went into a bottomless pit never to be returned to IT. Now the world has moved on and will create its own IT much more efficiently. I like it.