Apple Beats Microsoft in First Quarter Profit

[AppleMacDudeG4]

Microsoft is ok but not really innovating

Apple is doing extremely we'll in a lot of markets. Microsoft does well in the corporate market but they are not flashy or innovative in terms of their core market. Microsoft does well because corporations have settled on Windows / Office combination. Since it does well for their purposes, it is enough to sustain them.

Congratulations to Apple for doing so well but do not feel bad for Microsoft.

 

[0098386]

LOL @ all the people claiming Microsoft is dead. I mean, seriously? They were $76 million worse off from Apple and according to most people on this forum, Microsoft aren't pulling their socks up and trying and innovating anymore. I don't think that is at all bad at all. Lazing around and still making a profit at the end of the day.

Makes you slightly embarrassed to be an Apple user doesn't it?

 

[ericinboston]

Microsoft is DEAD.

This is all you ever say and is a waste of text/space on this site.

MacRumors...how do we ban this guy?


Sheeeeeez.

 

[Vegasman]

this pretty much sums it up.

Here is what it looks like if you got in on both on day one. Just saying...

 

[ericinboston]

Apple is doing extremely we'll in a lot of markets. Microsoft does well in the corporate market but they are not flashy or innovative in terms of their core market. Microsoft does well because corporations have settled on Windows / Office combination. Since it does well for their purposes, it is enough to sustain them.

Congratulations to Apple for doing so well but do not feel bad for Microsoft.

1)Most of what you wrote is true...but there is so much more to Microsoft being successful on just Windows and/or Office as well as MS and Apple have completely different business models. MS has been extremely successful with SQL Server for decades. Windows is more than just Windows in the business world. Apple is and has been non existent in the business world since Apple's birth. MS has numerous small business packages. Apple has none. MS has a huge Services team. Apple has none. MS has ventured into hardware accessories for decades (mice, keyboards, etc) and probably still makes a hefty profit there. MS has also dabbled into consumer electronics hardware with Xbox (wildly successful) and Zune (terribly bad). Again, these aren't cuts on Apple nor am I rooting for MS...but there simply is no comparison.

2)MS has been innovative for a very long time. Last few years?...in my opinion? Not really.


I'm glad Apple is doing very well and hopefully Apple will some day lower their iMac prices a few hundred bucks so I can have a prettier web surfing machine compared to my Dell. I'll never steer away from iPods. And very likely I will buy an iPhone 5 to replace my 3GS...unless Apple takes too long and/or charges too much compared to the 25+ Android models I can choose from.

 

[Slix]

Go Apple!

 

[LightSpeed1]

I'm pretty certain Apple knew this day was coming.

 

[AppleScruff1]

I'm pretty certain Apple knew this day was coming.

Are you sure?

 

[*LTD*]

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It's very, very telling. MS is riding the coattails of their universal licensing racket while Apple keeps changing the face of consumer tech. This day was bound to come.

This is the post-PC era and we'll see MS in decline.

 

[AppleScruff1]

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It's very, very telling. MS is riding the coattails of their universal licensing racket while Apple keeps changing the face of consumer tech. This day was bound to come.

This is the post-PC era and we'll see MS in decline.

Did you forget that Microsoft is what got the pc world to where it is today?

 

[ChrisTX]

Wow, Apple is pretty much unstoppable now. And if anyone tries to get in their way, they've got a $60b war chest.

To be fair I read that it is now $65b but who's counting.

 

[Bernard SG]

That can be viewed another way. Apple is too cheap to bother risking anything that is not a sure bet.

MS willing to risk R&D and a lot of R&D on things that might be a dead end.
MS R&D is more like a university Research compared to Apple R&D that is only about profit.
Guess which one adds more better for the people. Correct answer is not Apple

Man, if those success stories were sure bets, how come nobody went for it long before Apple?

 

[kresh]

I do know that you have no idea what Certified Cost Engineer

So you're that SOB that sticks a $0.25, engineered to fail, part in an otherwise outstanding product?

j/k

 

[flottenheimer]

I bet ballmers goal is $5.99 billion profit next quarter.

Now, that's really, really funny.
Thanks.

 

[*LTD*]

Did you forget that Microsoft is what got the pc world to where it is today?

They did. And boy, does it show! Part of the reason Apple has done so remarkably well for years now.

 

[linux2mac]

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MS is riding the coattails of their universal licensing racket........

"Racket" is the best word to describe it. I spent thousands on Microsoft and never received a quality product after almost two decades. Shame on them.

 

[Vegasman]

They did. And boy, does it show! Part of the reason Apple has done so remarkably well for years now.

Part of the reason Apple has done so remarkably well for years now? Sure. However it is also mostly the reason Apple still only had 5% of that market.

 

[AidenShaw]

Part of the reason Apple has done so remarkably well for years now? Sure. However it is also mostly the reason Apple still only had 5% of that market.

Oh, you have an honest streak. I like that.

 

[Vegasman]

"Racket" is the best word to describe it. I spent thousands on Microsoft and never received a quality product after almost two decades. Shame on them.

Really!? You never received a quality product? In 20 years? Please tell.

 

[neko girl]

MS is riding the coattails of their universal licensing racket

I've always wondered what Windows's market share comes from pirated copies of Windows. There's a lot of pirated copies out there.. a lot..

 

[linux2mac]

Really!? You never received a quality product? In 20 years? Please tell.

The closest was Windows 2000 Professional. I quit at XP.

 

[LagunaSol]

The interesting part is that Microsoft makes almost the same profit as Apple on far less revenue, but you never hear any outrage about Microsoft overpricing its products.

 

[Vegasman]

I've always wondered what Windows's market share comes from pirated copies of Windows. There's a lot of pirated copies out there.. a lot..

And they still managed to sell 350 million licenses of Windows 7 in 18 months. That's insane! I am telling you... I would like to sit in that room in either Redmond or Cupertino where you see the profit tote board being updated every second, or every minute or whatever. It must just make someone dizzy. It's like 45,000$ a minute. Of profit! Ridicurous.

 

[haruhiko]

I still don't understand why nobody has managed to make a viable alternative to Microsoft Office, esp. Microsoft Excel. Apple's iWork is fine, but clearly not enough and of course there is no Windows version. Google is too obsessed with the cloud and ad thing and didn't make Google Docs a local app for Windows / Mac / Smartphones with Dropbox like cloud capabilities.

So Microsoft can continue to be fed with its Windows / Office monopolies for the foreseeable future.

 

[NickFalk]

You do realize that this image could end up biting Apple in the butt? In 3 years time the iPad will be where the iPhone is now: Loosing some (not all) of its marketshare to the knockoffs.

Unless Apple has a new iToy (I.e not an MP3 player, phone or tablet) ready for say 3-4 years from now, they wont get any bigger than they now are.

Market share is important but profits even more so. As long as you have a large enough market share to be relevant mind share is probably more important. If you have a market share like the iPod or Windows/Office, then of course you ride high on the fact that you're (basically) the only player in town.

In most markets however there will always be several competitors. If, so it doesn't matter if you have the second largest market share, as long as you have the highest profits. Also: Which company does anyone foresee will overtake Apple when it comes to selling tablets/pads? I agree that Android has a fair chance of becoming the dominating platform but only because it will be used by so many different vendors. (And, by the way, doesn't the number of iOS users still outweigh Android users?)

Apple on the other hand will have an exclusive product that differentiates itself from the crowd. Dell, Samsung, HTC, Joe's bargain pads, will all compete in the same market with basically identical products. If the PC-era showed us anything, this will lead to a price war. Price-wars often leads to cutting corners to lower costs. Which again means that Apple's will be well poised to stand its ground as the premium quality pad. As it is already competitively priced it might even be that the Android onslaught never happens in the same way as it has in the cell-phone space. Cell-phones are after all omnipresent. At the moment there isn't so much a tablet-market as an iPad market. (Not altogether unlike the iPod-era, if not quite as clear cut).