01-28-2014, 01:45 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-28-2014, 01:48 PM by Dividend Watcher.)
OK, I'll re-type what I wrote last night with embellishment ...
Ballmer, Bing, the Board of Directors, Windows 8, Zune & Slate for a few.
MSFT was never an innovator. They watched what others did, then came up with their own solutions. That's why they were late with the Internet and IE, the Aero theme and Hyper-V to name a few recent ones.
That being said, they are a cash cow and piss away a lot of that extra money with experiments. Are they a has-been? Not in my book.
I've tried to steer some of my small business customers away from Office to one of the alternatives and they won't hear of it.
Office (the desktop version) still fills their pockets. Azure actually holds a lot of promise that they don't get credit for. Office 365 is an up and coming constant revenue stream that won't depend on big business upgrade cycles. Expect to see this same concept in operating systems in the not too distant future. Xbox still has a lot of fans. And, if you really want to get philosophical, where they are going with Windows 8 is actually an ingenious roadmap -- phone, tablet and PC will look essentially the same and, with Skydrive, is essentially the same device in different form factors.
Don't expect the stock to be a Netflix or Twitter with phenomenal growth in price but I think the future looks very rewarding -- especially if they get a visionary CEO.
I'm long but would still feel this way if I didn't own it. Now if the dividend growth slows, I might not be so amenable.
(01-27-2014, 11:26 PM)Dexter Wrote: Can you think of any negatives?
Ballmer, Bing, the Board of Directors, Windows 8, Zune & Slate for a few.
MSFT was never an innovator. They watched what others did, then came up with their own solutions. That's why they were late with the Internet and IE, the Aero theme and Hyper-V to name a few recent ones.
That being said, they are a cash cow and piss away a lot of that extra money with experiments. Are they a has-been? Not in my book.
I've tried to steer some of my small business customers away from Office to one of the alternatives and they won't hear of it.
Office (the desktop version) still fills their pockets. Azure actually holds a lot of promise that they don't get credit for. Office 365 is an up and coming constant revenue stream that won't depend on big business upgrade cycles. Expect to see this same concept in operating systems in the not too distant future. Xbox still has a lot of fans. And, if you really want to get philosophical, where they are going with Windows 8 is actually an ingenious roadmap -- phone, tablet and PC will look essentially the same and, with Skydrive, is essentially the same device in different form factors.
Don't expect the stock to be a Netflix or Twitter with phenomenal growth in price but I think the future looks very rewarding -- especially if they get a visionary CEO.
I'm long but would still feel this way if I didn't own it. Now if the dividend growth slows, I might not be so amenable.
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“While the dividend itself is merely a rearrangement of equity, over time it's more like owning an apple tree. The tree grows the apples back again and again and again, and the theoretical value of the tree doesn't change just because of when the apples are about to fall.” - earthtodan
“While the dividend itself is merely a rearrangement of equity, over time it's more like owning an apple tree. The tree grows the apples back again and again and again, and the theoretical value of the tree doesn't change just because of when the apples are about to fall.” - earthtodan