One Apple and several Microsoft

Last week was completely and completely filled with Apple. Fans of this company have several new products at their disposal at once - the Lion operating system, the cool MacBook Airs and maybe not that cool, but without the optical drive, the Mac Mini. Journalists and bloggers who covered the events in this area could not resist comparing Steve Jobs with Scrooge MacDuck, diving up a mountain of gold coins in his safe room.



Microsoft also published quarterly results and they were almost as big as Apple. In Redmond, they were able to pocket almost $ 6 billion in profits with total revenues of more than $ 17 billion. It was a record quarter and we can not forget that Microsoft can earn money at all times - even now, when it cannot be said that the economy has completely recovered from the recent dive of the mortgage market, the company was able to raise profits by almost 30% compared to the second quarter of 2010 of the year.



And right now the situation is becoming more interesting - Microsoft has shown a record quarter with flat PC sales growth around the world, where it generates profits for Windows and Windows Live - two historically most efficient products whose sales have generally fallen since the beginning of the year. During these three months, the company has not released a single new product. During these three months there was almost no interesting news from Microsoft, except for speculations that Steve Ballmer should leave the post of CEO. It seems that the shareholders still hold on to this mastodon.

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Apple has exceeded Wall Street expectations mainly because it sells more iPads than it produces (and this is not a joke). Apple enters the corporate market and deepens in foreign economies - this is the company's first success in these areas. “Apple” products in general are among the most popular and fashionable in today's economy, their owners carry them with them everywhere and everywhere, bragging no less than with a new car in the garage.



Bloggers no longer write critical notes about Apple - now they are only making fictional spending, putting themselves in the place of company management. Should Scrooge buy any TV service like Hulu? Suddenly he will make him as super popular as the rest of his products? Let it be nonsense - what's the difference? Cool it will be!



In fact, it doesn’t matter what actions Apple will take in the current market. When a company is as strong as the brainchild of Jobs is now successful, absolutely everything can be possible, even, sorry, the impossible.



Apple impressively floats on the waves, Microsoft is trying not to draw water overboard.



And that's what I think, contrary to the opinions of many - Microsoft suddenly became more interesting than Apple.



For a very long time, everything was exactly the opposite. The Redmond giant could not make a single mistake, while Apple hung in the balance from death and no one even hoped that one day they would be able to get out of this pit for, by and large, one product (iPod, the beginning of the i-epic) .



Like most readers of this text, I mostly use Microsoft and PC-compatible software and hardware, but Apple has always been a little more attractive, a little more interesting and exciting.



- Computer all-in-one without a floppy drive? Wow!

- A player playing only digital music? This is an interesting idea.

- iPhone? I have never had a smartphone before, but now I really want to buy one for myself.



But time confused all the priorities and set our ideas about technology upside down. I, like many others, are actively using Apple products, looking with interest at Microsoft, which now seems to be a slightly different company.



If you enter the Apple department (at any of the branded Store) - picking up one of the iPads or iPhones and playing with them for a couple of minutes, you will find out almost everything Apple is capable of today. It is a monolithic company, but its structure is similar to a pyramid: each pebble fits tightly to another, not even the most perfect one. Each detail complements the other, forming an excellent synergy and symbiosis of software and hardware.



But Microsoft is at least (at least!) At least three different companies. A little comic will not be superfluous here:

Strong Microsoft

This is a company that everyone knows: Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, Hotmail. He may be a bit boring, but still very strong. Each new version, each new refinement of the interface is perceived as a big event. This is part of our common culture for a long time. This Microsoft did not show any dynamics in the last quarter (except for Office, which sold well). The growing, but still non-profitable part of the business called Online Services (includes Bing) is somewhere between Strong Microsoft and ...

New Microsoft

This is Microsoft, which could also open its own retail department: Xbox 360, Kinect, Windows Phone 7 - all of these are relatively new, but very good products for entertainment and work that have ripped many competitors to shreds. It is this Microsoft that is responsible for the record fiscal quarter.



I will also include the awesome Microsoft Research team at New Microsoft. This is what remains of the legendary Xerox PARC department today (the same people still work there today). This team regularly shows new projects, some of which grow into excellent and successful products, although you may want to refer them to ...

Secret Microsoft

This is Microsoft, whose products we use as end users in the computer market, sometimes without even seeing the name of the company. It is also Microsoft uniting with other corporations and even governments. This is Microsoft for which, unlike Apple, a huge profit has never been just a pleasant surprise.



The secret Microsoft as Janus is a two-faced, and its unpleasant side is that he is well versed in the practice of patent trolling and seeking profit on everything that is possible. For example, Microsoft gets a certain percentage of every Amazon Kindle sold. Does the latest technology use MS? Not. But Kindle runs on Linux, and Micrososft claims that Linux infringes its patents. Therefore, Amazon pays a commission to Uncles Gates and Ballmer because, seriously, who wants to fight Microsoft?



If you have your own categories, which can be divided into the entire business of this IT giant - build your own theories in the comments and we will see whose slimmer :)



But there are much more interesting stories about the Secret Microsoft (as about the most mysterious superhero), for example, why he continues to earn a very large share of the profits for all. For example, in a quarterly report, Microsoft mentions $ 17.1 billion in "lost profits." Not weak! And what is it?



This is the money that Microsoft considered to be long-term government contracts and business deals, but it will only get them into balance when, when the contracts expire. That is, if Microsoft Strong does not show excellent results of its activities, Microsoft Secret can simply count all the best customers of the company and assess their impact on their own financial condition in the long term.



Another story in which Secret Micrososft is involved is the alliance between Microsoft and Facebook. Recently, the network has received the first reports that MS is working together with developers of games for social networks.



MS provides companies like Zynga with ready-made tools to effectively maintain the backend in working order, solving the main problem of game developers, such as user-profile management or collecting and transferring Facebook credits to bank accounts - no one wants to mess with this hemorrhoids Studio. In exchange for this service, developers host their games on Microsoft Azure instead of, for example, Amazon. Everything benefits (except Amazon, of course).



In the TV series The Wire, which is being shown on HBO, an excellent phrase was once said by one of the detectives - Lester Framen. He spoke of a serious drug problem in any American city: “If you follow drugs, you find drug addicts and dealers, sometimes manufacturers. But if you start to follow the money received from the sale of drugs, you have no idea where they will lead you. ”



Approximately the same applies to Apple and Microsoft. If you follow Apple - you get a lot of information about what is happening now in the technology sector and what is important for customers. If you follow Microsoft, then you begin to discover more intriguing details about how the entire industry works and where it goes.



You can thank Wired at any time.