XP still top OS

[markopolo]

I just made the move to Windows 7 for my desktop last month. Laptop is Vista. I thought I was way behind ............
Vista never really caught on according this article:
XP still top OS, but Windows 7 hot on its trail
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57...20&tag=nl.e703

[Johnny R]

Most businesses use the XP platform. Trading floors too. But tonight, I don't care. Watching Canada-Russia world juniors, end of the first period, with the score not in our favour.

[Mike]

Was always a fan of WinXP - used it for years at work, and I've been retired since 2005.
I have seen pretty much every other predecessor MS/OS and some were good, some less so.
Win98 was so so, and laid the basic building blocks for WinXP and beyond.
Last March, we got a Win7 laptop, and it''s very similar to WinXP, which was what it was intended
to be. A lean and mean Vista, after that debacle. MS really created a resource hungry OS that
did what it was born to do, sell higher horsepower computers, because you couldn't run it on the
same machines that ran XP.
This netbook is WinXP, btw.
I think people like what they're most used to/cut their teeth on. Few openly embrace change.

[Davydd]

Windows XP as the still top OS is not something to consider good, at least not for Microsoft. It is what, nearly 11 years old now? In a fast changing world of computer technology that can't be good. It tells me Microsoft plateaued some time ago and if you look at the fundamentals, as a company, their stock directly reflects their failings to substantially improve on XP. As an investment they have been dead in the water almost since the introduction of XP with just a 35% gain over a decade. Inflation adjusted, you would have lost money over that time on Microsoft.

I am familiar with XP. It is the operating system I used at work before I retired in 2007.

[Mike]

Davydd, always so critical of Microsoft, you'd think you owned Apple shares or something?

Microsoft is still in the top ten by valuation. Their Operating Systems are still the most widely used
worldwide. They do it all without doing much of anything, except rewriting an existing piece of software and reselling it as a new product. How simple is that? And they collect licensing royalties every time another PC manufacturer (HP, Dell, Acer, etc.) builds a machine with a Microsoft Genuine OS in it, and sells it to someone.
Even Apple Macs use software developed and built for PCs because they have no choice, it's what some Apple people want in their personal computing world. I bet that galls them. Pride before a fall is always a possibility, and with Jobs gone, who knows what the future holds for the i-everything company?
Time will tell.....
Rumor is, MS will be looking at taking a bite out of Apple later this year, possibly collaborating with one of Apple's biggest competitors in the smartphone systems biz.
As always, stay tuned......

Question:
Why doesn't AAPL pay a dividend? Share the success and bounty with the shareholders? Nope, we don't do that.
Personally, I wouldn't own a company that doesn't pay me to own them.
Just my opinion, as usual.
As you were......

[Davydd]

Mike,

Microsoft cannot make any more money off Windows XP and as long as it stays the number 1 OS all it does is make it an albatross because that is a sale they won't have with their new OSes.

You really want to worry about dividends when you can own a stock that goes from $8 to $460 (AAPL) compared to a stock that goes from $24 to $30 (MSFT) since the introduction of Windows XP 11 years ago? You can't be serious can you? There is one common refrain theme Microsoft advocates have and that is always "next year" or "soon." No company stays on top forever (ask Kodak) but Apple is still on top and Microsoft has already come and gone. As long as Steve Ballmer is the CEO of Microsoft I wouldn't gamble a penny on them.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Davydd

Mike,

Microsoft cannot make any more money off Windows XP and as long as it stays the number 1 OS all it does is make it an albatross because that is a sale they won't have with their new OSes.

Davydd, please reread my post.I said they rewrite their existing code (Win98, WinXP, for example) to make a new OS from an old one (WinVista, Win7, for example)and make tons of money by selling the newer code. Every PC (read that as non-Apple/Mac) that's sold anywhere in the world has (not XP of course, it's been obsoleted for well over a year) an OS from Microsoft on it. It's a fact. Perhaps, I don't understand your point? btw, Apple trashed their PC sales when they released the iPhone and iPad. They diverted sales from their laptops to the new toys. Perhaps that reinforces the Microsoft OS dominance of a market that most traditional businesses still use, namely the PC. What happens when they run out of gadgets and toys for the public? Their hardware/software combos are more expensive than PC based equipment. If a product fails, what then? Google "failed Apple products". There's a few.

Originally Posted by Davydd

You really want to worry about dividends when you can own a stock that goes from $8 to $460 (AAPL) compared to a stock that goes from $24 to $30 (MSFT) since the introduction of Windows XP 11 years ago? You can't be serious can you?

Actually sir, it's only a win when you sell it for the profit. Will you be selling your stock any time soon? If not, it's still an $8 stock in accounting capital gains terms. If AAPL were to go to zero, now that the talisman (Jobs) is gone, is it still unimportant that they don't pay you to own them? Think, just for a minute, Apple was largely dead in the 90s, and was really only resurrected by their talismanic founder who recently died for no good reason at all, other than he thought he was invincible, and went holistic, and didn't get surgery when he still had a chance at survival. It may have been the worst decision of his unnecessarily shortened life. Don't make the same mistake with your profit, whatever it may be.

Originally Posted by Davydd

There is one common refrain theme Microsoft advocates have and that is always "next year" or "soon." No company stays on top forever (ask Kodak) but Apple is still on top and Microsoft has already come and gone.

No company stays on top forever. You said it. But some last forever. Rabbits and tortoises. IBM, J&J, MO, DOW, GE, ED, to name a few. I can't see any of them going away any time soon. With the choke hold Microsoft has on worldwide PC software and the OEM PC business (over everyone else, Linux, Apple, ?) and in the personal computing business worldwide (think about it, almost every major business in the world has an MSN based PC as their front line at the customer service counters) never count them out. And they do it effortlessly. Apple has become a gadget company with their iPhones and their iPads. Trendy yes, here to stay, maybe, market share, yes, in their niche. Great stock price growth over a long time, to date. They certainly look solid, but no company stays on top forever. Their turn will come.

Originally Posted by Davydd

As long as Steve Ballmer is the CEO of Microsoft I wouldn't gamble a penny on them.

And now that Steve Jobs is gone, ditto on Apple. IMHO.

Full disclosure in this discussion?
I own IBM. I don't own MSFT or AAPL.
I don't expect to change your perspective on any of this, but that's alright.
We do get off topic easily, don't we?
I enjoy our head to head "discussions". Good "noodle" exercise.

[Davydd]

I've been long on both IBM and Apple and both have done exceptionally well. IBM is really not in any competition anymore with Apple or Microsoft. They have successfully moved into a totally different business.

You keep calling iPads and iPhones as gadgets but they are far exceeding all PC sales now. Same with the OSes. I would have to say the longterm trend is toward them because as tablets mature they will continue to take over things people now do on PCs. Because of that and the dominance of the iPad in that market Apple is starting to make some serious inroads into the corporate market because of the many tasks an iPad is superior at doing. I still use my laptop for some tasks simply because there is no equivalent on the tablet such as CAD and 3D drawing. That advantage won't last forever and being retired now it is a want and not a need. I still use my laptop for a lot of tasks that require typing input mainly because I have put off buying a bluetooth keyboard. However, for probably 90% of my computing activity I don't desire the extra baggage of a physical keyboard. Probably when we hit the road again in the spring I might spring for the keyboard and leave the laptop at home. On our 6 week trip last fall I took the laptop along but didn't use it but one time.

You can't ignore or dismiss trends. Tablets are not a passing fancy. Laptops displaced most desktop computers and now for the very same reasons laptops did that, tablets will displace laptops -- flexibility and versatility. The tablet has already destroyed the so called netbook market.

As for Microsoft they have habitually missed important trends starting with the Internet itself in 1995 when Bill Gates initially and publicly dismissed it. They did the same with the iPod and then Ballmer predicted the iPhone would be a failure. In 2010 after a decade of promoting their version of a tablet computer they got blindsided big time by Apple's iPad. They failed (Zune) competing with the iPod and they still haven't answered the bell for either the iPhone (after 5 years) and the iPad. XP's OS continued dominance on computers is just a symbol that they have failed to improve their OS enough to supplant it after 11 years. On the internet they have still completely missed answering the bell in social media, the cloud and search. See what I mean by "next year" and "soon"?

I'm now a 28 year veteran of online message board discussion. I agree it is just noodling and a fun exercise.