Microsoft & Apple in the news

[BobHelm]

Microsoft software head Ray Ozzie resigns

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11571046

There would appear to be "something" happening at Microsoft with what is happening at the top.

Business head Stephen Elop left in September to head up Nokia, while entertainment and devices head Robbie Bach is also planning to leave.

Mr. Ozzie was a fan of 'cloud computing' & that was what he was working on...The concept of cloud computing is that the user has more or less 'dumb terminal' & all the programs, files & computations are done on huge remotely located computers via the web. The, theoretical, advantages for large companies in cloud computing are immense. No more selling software to users, they will 'rent it' when needed & just get the 'results' of their efforts on screen without needing to worry about the process. On the other side of the fence all manufacturers are pretty tied into how the world currently operates. While companies like Microsoft complain about piracy & fraud they do make a hell of a lot of money out of it as well...
So there are doubt about where MS are going now & what the future holds for cloud computing...It made the Stock Exchange nervous & the shares have dropped a couple of % before they officially open.

That drop was dwarfed by Apple though.

Apple shares fall despite surprisingly strong profits

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11570631

The profits were 70% up on a year ago & much better than expected. However Apple shares have been having a good run they are 50% up since March this year - a great ride to have been on & so people are maybe taking their profit.
The flagship products are iPhone & iPad. The phone had great sales (despite some bad publicity) but the Pad sales have been disappointing. After an initial 'wow, Apple have done it again' the industry has been a little less flattering about what the iPad actually gives you for your money compared to alternative ideas. It appears that potential customers have taken a similar view..

[ScorpioPower]

As I see it, Bob, while Apple has always been more creative and unrestrictive with its product offering [it had to be against a monopoly], BOTH companies have pretty much run out of ideas.

Microsoft, being a monopoly, never had to apply any tarnish to it's appaling product range. Security/patch updates, etc. What a sham. Every single one of them meant a screw up.

Apple, not being a monopoly and under Steve Jobs, did exceptionally well. For a while.

But all of both companies products can either be copied. Illegaly and/or more cheaply.

The Chinese cometh!

Nee-how! ["Hello" in Chinese].

[BobHelm]

It appears that Microsoft have bombed badly on the 'pad' side of the business.
Apple clearly see that there is a market but, like anything from Apple, it is neat looking & highly expensive.
Amazon has just announced a large rise in profits which have been put down to their pad e-book, the Kindle.
For those who do not like Apple then pads run on Google's Android 3 or Palm's webOS are the only real alternatives.
10 months ago Microsoft's Steve Ballmer was the first to show off Hewlett Packard's Slate tablet PC saying it was the portable future & it ran on Windows 7. You still cannot buy it as Microsoft are still having issues producing the software to run it. As you can imagine HP are not exactly over the moon about it either. They took the extreme step of buying Palm & are releasing a tablet version running on webOS.
The Windows 'touch screen' software is apparently poor when compared to any of the opposition. Worse, like most Windows products, the OS is just too power hungry. The last thing you want on a tablet device is something that requires a 2 kilo battery pack to keep it mobile, or for it to be permanently plugged into the mains - rather defeats the whole reason for a pad.