Microsoft Dethrones Apple as the Largest US Company 52
The stock market has a new, but familiar, monarch. Microsoft's AI-powered stock rally has made the software giant the largest U.S. company by market value, surpassing Apple for the first time since November 2021. WSJ: Shares edged higher Thursday morning, bringing Microsoft's market value to nearly $2.87 trillion. Apple, meanwhile, fell 1%, pulling its market capitalization just below that threshold. Either Apple or Microsoft has held the title since Feb. 4, 2019, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Microsoft's stock has been on the rise for the past year thanks to the continued growth of its cloud computing division, even as major competitors like Amazon and Google have experienced a gradual slowdown in sales growth.
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So smart business?
Re: And how much is that from forced revenue? (Score:1)
Smart, yes, but also illegal.
Luckily they paid enough bribes to get out of prosecution. Then Bill put his ill gotten gains into his foundation to dodge taxes.
Re:And how much is that from forced revenue? (Score:4, Insightful)
By intentionally working with other software makers to not Support Windows 7
Zero. Microsoft revenue from OS licenses to the few consumers left running old crap is virtually zero. Microsoft revenue from upgrading users is zero. They didn't charge for any of that, and share markets (which is precisely what this story is about) don't give a shit about it either.
Sounds like a daft conspiracy at best, but the reality is clearly visible in quarterly statements. This is driven by AI / Cloud / Subscriptions.
They must have given Gaben a pretty penny to drop support on Steam.
Dropping support for Windows 7 had zero to do with Microsoft. More Google. Why do you think Microsoft would pay even a single cent for a couple of thousands of windows machines to have their support dropped, much less a "pretty penny". Even as a conspiracy theory this one is just silly. You don't need a reason to drop support for an OS that is well and truly EOL, and Valve has one anyway, it was provided by Google Chrome.
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Zero. Microsoft revenue from OS licenses to the few consumers left running old crap is virtually zero. Microsoft revenue from upgrading users is zero. They didn't charge for any of that, and share markets (which is precisely what this story is about) don't give a shit about it either.
You are mostly wrong. While home users who upgraded to Windows 10 got a free ride, businesses still paid through their EA contracts. And all new machines have to pay $65 for an OEM license. So yes. Microsoft extracted billions from Windows 10.
And the stock's price most definitely reflects company revenue. You're just talking out your ass on that one.
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You are mostly wrong. While home users who upgraded to Windows 10 got a free ride, businesses still paid through their EA contracts.
It is important to read the entire discussion. Specifically how we're talking about some current "evil scheme" to move Windows 7 away to Windows 11. Precisely zero businesses on EA contracts still use Windows 7. Context of the discussion matters. We're not talking about all computers here, we're talking about Microsoft's Q4 2023 financial reports.
And the stock's price most definitely reflects company revenue.
And Microsoft revenue is predominantly Cloud / Subscription based. You even said it yourself "EA contract", what do you think that is.
Have a bit of a think before
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I generally agree, though Microsoft's revenue from upgrading any users now. They no longer offer it for free. So you would need to either pay for Windows upgrade on your existing system or buy a whole new system, presumably with a nominal amount going to Microsoft for the platform.
That said, that revenue is doubtlessly trivial and the investors are more jumping up and down excitedly at the phrase "X Copilot is adding AI capabilities to X" where X is random Microsoft technology. A crescendo of hype by com
Re:And how much is that from forced revenue? (Score:5, Informative)
Dude. Out of all the problems with Microsoft, abysmally short support lifecycles isn't one of them. Even open source releases have support lifecycles. Long Term Support in linuxland is five years, maybe extended to ten if you're using one of the three distributions that do that sort of thing. Windows 7 reached end of support after 14 years.
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I'd imagine that Valve didn't need much arm twisting to drop Windows 7 support for Steam. People with old computers still running Windows 7 probably aren't buying new games from them, meaning that supporting that old platform isn't bringing in any new revenue for them.
They would want those gamers to upgrade to shiny new Windows 11 gaming PC's just like Microsoft does, in the hopes that they buy a bunch of new games in the process.
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Re: And how much is that from forced revenue? (Score:1)
> They must have given Gaben a pretty penny to drop support on Steam.
Itâ(TM)s actually because of Google Chrome being the base for the Steam view. Google is dropping support with the Chrome code base, so Steam has to as well, unless they rewrite it to use a different engine.
Blame Google, not Gaben.
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Along those same lines, Windows 11 is dropping support for older Intel Processors lacking certain features. Supposedly, it's to improve virtualization, but how much would it cost to just not support that virtualization as well on older processors?
It's a boon to PC manufacturers that push Windows 11. The big PC makers say "Works best with Windows!" on their websites and don't highlight or give you any price break on units with Linux installed. Didn't I read that MS requires that they get a payment for ev
Who is choosing Azure...by free will? (Score:2)
But if you are like most serious operations out there, you're generally using Linux, and probably Oracle or the like for a RDB....
And unless something has drastically changed, Azure is not exactly "friendly" to those systems.
We had nightmares setting things up at Azure, etc.
The only reasons one of my last large, LARGE systems moved there was, that a manger that "knew windows" better than he knew Linux...felt more comfortable moving
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Big Azure spenders in 2020 (couldn't find newer data in my 30 second search)
1) Verizon: $79.9 million
2) MSI Computer: $78 million
3) LG Electronics: $76.7 million
4) CenturyLink: $61.9 million
5) NTT America: $48.7 million
6) Wikimedia Foundation: $42.6 million
7) LinkedIn Corp: $41.2 million
8) News Corp: $40.5 million
9) Adobe: $39.9 million
10) Intel: $38.5 million
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ALL the cloud systems are constantly-changing convoluted cluster-fucks. Azure just has its own style of suckage.
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"The Cloud" should really be an open hosting and deployment standard, not an organization or service. That way it wouldn't matter where it's hosted and not be tied to a greedy vendor.
Re:Who is choosing Azure...by free will? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, ok, if you are a window operation, then sure, Azure will fit you.
So ... you just described most of the Fortune 500 list. We know *you* hate Microsoft, but the reality is the answer to your question is: "Everyone else"
But if you are like most serious operations out there
I'll take a no true Scotsman fallacy with a side of stupid ignorance thanks.
you're generally using Linux, and probably Oracle or the like for a RDB....
Indeed you are. But what makes you think the result isn't running on Azure? You do realise you can provision Azure with Linux right? Linux accounts for half of Microsoft's Azure revenue.
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I'm not talking desktop my friend, I'm talking very large backend server room systems of systems that require 24/7 uptimes.
Keep in mind that these big enterprises picked Microsoft for identity management (Active Directory) and for their groupware (Exchange, because Outlook pretty much demands exchange, and your clients are running Outlook if they have Office, and *of course* they have Office) From there a great deal of these shops decide to throw in with all sorts of Microsoft sourced technologies, because of the integration ultimately with Outlook and identity management and now Teams (which is approximately a sharepoint fron
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https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/02... [regmedia.co.uk]
I don't know the reasons but that's the bottom line.
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I am being kind of forced to train in AWS and I do not like it compared to Azure. It is expensive and overly complex while Azure is gaining AI and will soon be integrated with ChatGPT and CoPilot. Azure is ahead in many areas compared to AWS and it integrates well with the Microsoft Ecosystem.
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Me.
For $30 a month, I am able to leverage a SQL Server, license included, and use it to back my DNA web site ($10 a month) with 400 users. It would be free, except that I need to much storage for the free tier. I don't have to install anything, upgrades are done for me automatically. I get geo-redundant storage and continuous backup.
I'm actually a very happy customer.
Technically "most valuable" not largest (Score:5, Informative)
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In 1995 the top 6 were:
GE
Exxon
AT&T
Coca-Cola
Walmart
Philip-Morris (cigarettes)
So, ok, you had AT&T.
https://americanbusinesshistor... [americanbu...istory.org]
I'm always surprised automakers aren't higher on the list, since cars consume a big part of the family budget. Competitive business apparently.
Here's a fun article on how much things have changed in the ranks of the highest-valued companies globally since
2024 Is The Year Of The WSL Desktop. (Score:2)
O yeah, Fuck Apple.
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O yeah, Fuck Apple.
O yeah, Fuck You.
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No Thanks. I'm not into homosexual cults.
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No Thanks. I'm not into homosexual cults.
That's not what your Boyfriend says!
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Funny you would know him and I don't. Faggot.
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Funny you would know him and I don't. Faggot.
You don't know your Own Boyfriend?!?
Azure (Score:3)
How. The. Fuck. I hate to go full misanthrope, but man .. people are fucking stupid.
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Azure is the best cloud platform. I know I am going to get flamed but AWS is very expensive and has too many products that are thinly functional and lock you in more than any com/win32 garbarge I have seen 20 years ago. I am not saying Azure is perfect or doesn't offer lock in.
It is much easier to get started in Azure and Microsoft is adding AI with ChatGPT and CoPilot and is ahead over AWS in this area as well as existing integrations.
I am not much of an AWS expert but I am being trained at work and I do n
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Azure is the best cloud platform.
I don't agree but I digress, this is really like saying "Syphilis, the best of the venereal diseases".
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Not only the market valuation, but the revenue strangely also doesn't correlate well with how shitty or not a product is when it comes to the "business technology" market. A huge chunk of that are decision makers throwing buzzwords and money back and forth without ever actually knowing anything about how the actual work is done or even asking for/listening to a technical evaluation by their team that would actually be able to.
The hands on folks are just saddled with making the best of whatever the golf bu
Ironic (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember when Apple was on the ropes (pre-iphone),
and survived only because of a large cash infusion from
Microsoft...
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. That made MS look better at their antitrust trial and Apple was in seriously bad shape. They were months away from bankruptcy. Say what you want about Steve Jobs but he worked a miracle to get them turn around.
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Apple had earned that bankruptcy. I had the misfortune of working for a company that installed Macs at a couple hundred locations. Managing them under Sculley and his successors was horrifying. Jobs made it plausible again.
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That "infusion", though, was in settlement of an intellectual property suit.
nah the auditors just (Score:2)
largest U.S. company? (Score:2)
So what non-US companies are bigger than those 2?
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The King Is Dead, (Score:1)
*eyeroll* (Score:1)
the Apple had fallen far from the tree of Jobs long ago