Apples and Oranges in IT at Robert Pogson

I like how M$ spews impressive numbers when it compares itself to Google. The numbers are impressive:

one copy of M$’s office suite 2010 sold every second
$5.6 billion in quarterly revenue

But, look at the units. Google is selling 5000 businesses per day on Google Apps. There are a lot of users per business so Google is likely taking away many sales of that office suite per second. If M$ is getting $5600 million per annum revenue on 31 million per annum units, they are down to $180 per unit from the good old days of $hundreds per unit. Google is selling $150 million per annum at $50 per person so it’s the same number of units per second, 1. ie. Google is probably cutting M$’s take in half for a very small expenditure. Google doesn’t even have a channel of partners pushing the product. Imagine the impact if they did hire some salesmen… Google is breaking even on Docs while M$ is still losing money on search. Chuckle. M$ cannot compete on price/performance but relies on monopoly to pull them through. It used to work but no longer.

see NY Times – “Mixed Results as Google Enters Microsoft’s Turf“ NY Times does not bother to convert apples to oranges to compare…

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.