>Windows is popular, and PC sellers need to be able to
>sell it because people want it.
There is also support downstream, as it were. Many software companies have just a few products, making them quite risky. Not surprising that they minimize some of that risk by going with something safe by building on MS - which of course further strengthens MS.
>The bigger threat to M$ right now is Google
I think a lot of this is way overblown, a function of a business press that drools over young growers and is quick to depict older line names as stodgy. They of course write for a broader public enamored with David v Goliath tales. If anything, MS would debundle Office. I can't see very many business uses, for instance, where you wouldn't be considered negligent putting a spredsheet on something like a public server. Maybe this would work for word processing, but I don't see why MS wouldn't then offer its own online product or simply give Word away to protect market share. In the end, I think Google will mainly stick to its paid search knitting, using its checkout product to further its lead. Then they can stop throwing billions at YouTube-like "opportunities" and their publishing partners. I'd wager that in a few years we'll here more bitching against Google for denying ad revenue to sites it deems inappropriate than we do against MS, actually.
>A recent issue of the Economist discussed this, I
>believe....Threatening Office is a *much* bigger deal
>to M$ than threatening their MS-SQL-on-Windows-Server
>market. I believe the description the magazine used
>was that M$ may be reaching their "zenith".
I missed that but there was a comparable article on MS/Ballmer in last Sunday's NYTimes that you should look at if you haven't already. If MS is at its zenith now, it's only at its zenith with its current business mix. What happens, for instance, when the Xbox network initiative gets to breakeven and basically every incremental dollar goes straight to the bottom line? MS ten years out could look a lot more like a (smaller) highly profitable video game company than an OS behemoth. And they've always been great at chasing headlights. There will probably be a lot more cars to chase in the future.
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