Where Microsoft's Profits Come From
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 12th Feb 2010 22:55 UTC
Microsoft Sometimes, the sheer size of a company like Microsoft can make it quite hard to see and realise just how large and profitable such a company can really be. In these kinds of situations, there's nothing like a clear graph to make all those pretty numbers tangible. Up to a point.
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Priest
Member since:
2006-05-12

They are regulated in the areas where they have a monopoly, but practices like using profits from windows/office to pay companies to pull themselves from Google's search engine and list exclusively with Bing are pretty evil.

I also think they work pretty hard to make office a moving target to prevent serious competitors from gaining ground.

Reply Parent Score: 5

siride Member since:
2006-01-02

You lived such a sheltered life. That's a business tactic and at worst is a little-underhanded. It's hardly evil. There's no ethical requirement to be on any search engine index and certainly no ethical requirement to be on Google. It'd be more legit if Bing could get better hits of its own accord, of course.

Reply Parent Score: 3

foredecker Member since:
2007-01-05

How do you figure that is evil? All, I repeat, all companies (with more than one product) do exactly that. There is moral or legal requirement to treat different products as stand alone business that are not connected technical, or from a business perspective.

-Foredecker

Reply Parent Score: 2

tomcat Member since:
2006-01-06

They are regulated in the areas where they have a monopoly, but practices like using profits from windows/office to pay companies to pull themselves from Google's search engine and list exclusively with Bing are pretty evil.


How, exactly, is that evil? Google has a near-monopoly in search. The market would benefit from increased competition, even if that competition is promoted by buying market share. Ultimately, everyone benefits from increased competition -- not less -- so your assertion is bogus.

I also think they work pretty hard to make office a moving target to prevent serious competitors from gaining ground.


Priest, meet competition. Competition, Priest. Look, it's simple. Microsoft has to add value with subsequent products, or customers won't buy its products. Given that Microsoft has continued to add value in each of the successive releases of Office -- Ribbon is a far better experience than previous releases -- you can't argue that this hasn't benefited customers. Certainly, it has made competitors' lives more difficult, but WTF cares about the ease of competitors' lives? I'm more interested in the benefit to customers.

Reply Parent Score: 3

rockwell Member since:
2005-09-13

Wait, what? It's 'evil' for Microsoft to buy other companies?

So ... the companies being bought that accept the offers, are they 'evil' too?

Gotta love life in Freetardia.

Edited 2010-02-13 22:14 UTC

Reply Parent Score: -1