"Extrapolating from Gates’s implication of about a $12B-per-year burn rate, MSFT’s cash reserve gives it about 20 months of burn time at this point...I'm pretty certain from their recent behavior that Microsoft’s own planners aren’t giving the company more than 30 months to live without one of..."
These parts makes it sound like Microsoft is in the red when in reality they are making enormous profits, just not as much as they'd like. That 20 month figure assumes zero revenue.
Legacy customers, in particular in the corporate IT world, will ensure that Microsoft will retain its profitability long after it loses its stock value and its relevance (already it has lost a great deal of its relevance, but it still has much further to fall).
ESR has a long history of wishful thinking regarding the demise of Microsoft. Ten years ago he was saying:
"""Windows 2000 will be either canceled or dead on arrival. Either way it will turn into a horrendous train wreck, the worst strategic disaster in Microsoft's history.""" -- http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-revenge.html
> Legacy customers will ensure that Microsoft will retain its profitability long after it loses its stock value
Absolutely. Microsoft's downfall (if it happens) will be from industry-controlling colossus to large and profitable software and services vendor.
Comments
"Extrapolating from Gates’s implication of about a $12B-per-year burn rate, MSFT’s cash reserve gives it about 20 months of burn time at this point...I'm pretty certain from their recent behavior that Microsoft’s own planners aren’t giving the company more than 30 months to live without one of..."
These parts makes it sound like Microsoft is in the red when in reality they are making enormous profits, just not as much as they'd like. That 20 month figure assumes zero revenue.
Legacy customers, in particular in the corporate IT world, will ensure that Microsoft will retain its profitability long after it loses its stock value and its relevance (already it has lost a great deal of its relevance, but it still has much further to fall).
ESR has a long history of wishful thinking regarding the demise of Microsoft. Ten years ago he was saying:
"""Windows 2000 will be either canceled or dead on arrival. Either way it will turn into a horrendous train wreck, the worst strategic disaster in Microsoft's history.""" -- http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-revenge.html
> Legacy customers will ensure that Microsoft will retain its profitability long after it loses its stock value
Absolutely. Microsoft's downfall (if it happens) will be from industry-controlling colossus to large and profitable software and services vendor.