On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 11:53:32 EDT, Simon Smith said: > I think that anyone who thinks that Microsoft is near an end is being > unrealistic. I think that they are going to have to contend with the > challenges imposed by open source operating systems and OSX, but they are a > software giant. Also remember, Windows is not the only thing that Microsoft > makes. They have their hands in a lot of different pots.
Plus, they got like US$40 billion *cash* in the bank. that means that even if they screw up so badly that they lose a billion dollars a quarter, it will *still* take them over a decade to hemorrhage away just their cash. Then they still have to burn through all their non-cash assets (the value of stocks, selling off the office space in their campus, etc). If I haven't botched the math, they can stick the $40B in banks earning 5%, and be able to lose like $400M/quarter, and *still* show an overall profit. I really can't foresee *any* scenario that has Microsoft disappearing in under 20 years - except global economic upheaval where the survival of Microsoft will be the *least* of our worries....
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