Microsoft Sees IBM as Biggest Threat

Anonycat writes "Bill Gates gave an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show, claiming that IBM is the rival company Microsoft has their sights set on. From the article: 'People tend to get over focused on one of our competitors ... We've always seen that ... I'm never going to change the press' view about what the cool company to write about is. That's Google number 1 and Apple number 2 ... [IBM has] four times the employees that I have, way more revenues than I have.'"

Comments

awesome

[User 956]

Bill Gates gave an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show, claiming that IBM is the rival company Microsoft has their sights set on.

Sounds like Microsft needs to buy some glasses.

For a company that hates IBM...

[Anonycat]

From page 2 of the article: Also, IBM -- along with Toshiba Corp. (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Sony -- has developed the Cell microprocessor that will power Sony's PlayStation 3 video game console, a competitor to the Xbox 360, Microsoft's next-generation gaming unit. Who makes the chips for the Xbox360, again?

Size matters...

[hhr]

Wow. You have to wonder what all those people at IBM do and marvel at how efficient MSFT and Google are.

Google: Number of employees.. 4183 http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/facts.html
Net earnings: $1.297 billion.
Revenus $5.25 billion

IBM: Number of employees...369277 http://www.networkworld.com/news/financial/ibm.htm l
Net earnings: $7.797 billion.
Revenues: $94 billion

MSFT: Number of employees... 57000 http://www.networkworld.com/news/financial/microso ft.html
Net earnings: 12.867 billion.
Revenues $40.340 billion

Re:Does Bill think Everyone is a Fool ?

[EraserMouseMan]

Google is it's biggest rival in the Search Engine field. That's the only place. Google does not currently offer MS any competition in any of Microsoft's main software businesses (Operating Systems and Office Productivity).

Actually, he's probably right.

[ErichTheRed]

IBM today isn't the IBM it was in the 90s or 80s. They're still a technology company at the core, but they're doing a smart thing by becoming more of a services company. Lately, they've been turning themselves into another one of the "buzzword-compliant" consulting firms. Those companies (EDS, Accenture, BearingPoint, whatever) make boatloads of high-margin deals and huge profits...more than selling servers and mainframes could ever produce. Companies routinely cut multimillion-dollar checks for "strategic advice" from an army of new graduates who don't mind travelling 360 days of the year!!

Other things going for them:
- They killed their low-margin PC business. Love it or hate it, it definitely boosted their profit margin.
- IBM is one of the only companies still doing pure scientific/technology research. Microsoft is one of these companies too, but it's definitely time for the "next big thing." The PC revolution started in 1980, and it's 2005 now. If I were a technology company, especially one who wanted to keep their competitive edge, I'd be betting BIG on research. The only other big reseatch operations outside of universities that I know of are IBM, AT&T Labs and Microsoft. I'm sure there are other smaller operations, but not on the same grand scale.
- They still have one of the best server lines out there.
- They're big proponents of open source stuff. No matter how the whole OSS movement shakes out over the next few years, they're ideally positioned. Almost all their proprietary products can run on both closed- and open-source systems.

Edward G. Robinson

[xtermin8]

Ed G Robinson was the classic gangster voice of the movies. Cagney did a gangster in "White Heat" (Look ma...Top of the world) But Robinson was the one imitated in Bugs Bunny cartoons that most people are familiar with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_G_Robinson

Re:Hardware versus software

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry if I come on a little harsh, but your post is completely uninformed:

"IBM is a fundamentally a hardware company."
Around 60% of IBM's revenue comes from Services. Hardaware stands for about 30%. That hardly qualifies as a Hardware Company.

"Microsoft is fundamentally a software company."
You could agree with this, but theyre trying to fend off that label, and thats why they identify more diverse companies as big threats.

"And what's this nonsense about IBM working on the Xbox 360 CPU? I assure you that an IBM 360 processor will NOT fit inside an Xbox case - although the two do seem to generate similar amounts of heat."

This comment was just outright a demonstration of ignorance. All three new mayor consoles (Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony) will be shipping with a new family of processors based on the CELL techonology, developed and manufactured by IBM.

BillG used to be *nice* at IBM

[paj1234]

According to the book, "Barbarians Led By Bill Gates", Gates used to be horrible to everyone except IBM.

"Bill would go to a very senior person at these other OEMs, DEC or Tandy or Compaq or whoever, and yell at them or tell them it had to be this way, or if you don't do this we'll make sure our software doesn't run on your box. What do you do if you're one of these OEM guys? You're screwed. You can't have Microsoft not support your hardware, so you better do what they say.'

Ironically, McGregor also remembered the remarkable transformation of William Gates III in front of IBM.

'Bill was very humble and would speak softer (with IBM). There was a definite difference in the tone of his voice. You'd go in the meeting and it was just a fascinating contrast to see Bill at IBM versus Bill at any of the other companies.'"

How times have changed!

Re:Does Bill think Everyone is a Fool ?

[T-Ranger]

The browser can run on any OS. Any of the Mozilla products are cross platform, as is Opera.