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

Microsoft's Biggest Threat?

[ackthpt]

Begging Bill's pardon, but Microsoft's attitudes and practices are their own biggest threat.

Over the years, Microsoft's biggest threats have been:

• Apple Computer
• Sun
• Java
• Netscape
• Anyone who knows of a security hole in one of their operating systems.
• Oracle/Larry Ellison
• U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson
• Linux
• The European Commission
• Sony Playstation
• Google

I've heard Bill talk at a CES a few years ago and between the words, you could most definitely hear him placing Microsoft as not a technology partner to consumer electronics firms, but as a direct or indirect threat to their product lines and/or ways of doing business. While he waxed enthusiastic about how Windows CE would be some great enabling force, you could almost hear people break out in a sweat wondering what "Microsoft-tax" they would encounter to hop on or compete with the Redmond bandwagon, whether it actually added anything truly positive. I'm positive more than a few show exhibitors could almost see him in a pinstripe suit with a couple gunsels behind him and a moll on his arm.

<James Cagney Voice>
"We're the new business men in town, see? And you're going to like doing business with us, see? Because when you do business with us nobody gets hurt, see? Yeah. I think you do see. That's very good. Very good for business."
</James Cagney Voice>

Bill most likely sees threats to his company because he cultivates them. Microsoft has profited at IBM's expense for the past 20 years. Why shouldn't IBM be competing with Microsoft?

"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo

Re:Microsoft's Biggest Threat?

[dc29A]

Begging Bill's pardon, but Microsoft's attitudes and practices are their own biggest threat.

While that's true to an extent, I think it's open source and innovation. Google innovated with search engines, now it's a word. IPod is almost a word, a huge trend. Open Source is an ideology. You can't fight ideologies and words from dictionnary. Open Source + Microsoft's reluctance to change their business model + lack of innovation on their part will be it's ultimate undoing.

Then again, that won't change jack in the big scheme of things. Yesterday was IBM, the big Monopolistic Empire of Evil(tm), today is Microsoft, tommorow it will be (fill in the blanks).

Does Bill think Everyone is a Fool ?

[majjj]

I mean... how can he expect anyone to believe this. Just a month ago in an Television interview he accepted google as its main RIVAL in the coming times because of its high number and quality of innovations. He also vowed to beat google out of search engine market... I guess Bill is having Nightmare... amnesia these days.

AND IBM is a prime mover behind Linux

[darkonc]

This makes them something of a double threat. IF MS takes out IBM, they're probably gonna trash Linux with the bundle. IBM's support gives Linux a good deal of respect in the business world.
Then there's google.... Also a Linux user/proponent.
And apple insists on using Open Source (BSD) too....

So Microsoft's top-3 opponents are Open Source friendly companies.

See a pattern there?

Re:awesome

[cperciva]

The lack of splits is why the price of any individual share is so high; but it doesn't excuse the inflated total capitalization. According to the market, Google is worth 132.5 billion dollars; but is it really worth more than IBM or Coca-Cola, and almost three times as much as Disney?

Attention Google Fanboys

[vectorian798]

I think most of you are failing to recognize that Google is competing against only a tiny sliver of Microsoft. Note that a large majority of Google's employees are devoted to their search engine technology, whereas Microsoft operates in MANY different markets, and MSN Search is only one of them with less than a tenth of Google's corresponding group in employee count. Seeing as how all the rumors about Google planning for their own office suite etc. have been debunked, I don't think Google is as big a threat as people think it is.

IBM on the other hand, is the largest service sector company and the largest IT company. IBM's rock solid line of servers provide a much larger push for Unix-based systems (not just IBM's AIX, but really any of them) than does Google's use of FOSS in their products, or Summer of Code. Furthermore, IBM is by far the strongest presence in the HPC market, which as Bill indicated previously, is something MS wants to get into. We've also seen that IBM consistently produces great software (DB2, Business and Commerce software, OS, Application Server, and much more) as well as hardware (their hardware line includes complete server solutions, processors, storage systems, etc.) and is capable of using only its own products end-to-end.

Thus, it is appropriate to say that IBM is a bigger threat to MS than is Google.

PS: Google's market cap is not a reflection on its strength or presence so don't bring that up as a figure plz.