Has Google Drive hurt Microsoft Office's sales?
Not even slightly.Office is so entrenched in the workplace that for knowledge workers of the sort who need and use this kind of tool in a commercial setting, nothing else is acceptable, not even older versions of Office, for compatibility and training reasons.People who need this kind of tool and who don’t need it to be specifically Office are usually academics. In a low budget environment where time pressures are modest, Google Docs can be successful especially in those faculties with strong left-wing tendencies.But good luck flogging it to the School of Business. And because the Business department insists on Office, everyone but the Arts department falls in line.The Arts department spent all its budget on two Macs and a LaserWriter II in a small locked room that resembles a shrine, and teaches students to say things like “I just can’t relate to computers, how about interpretive dance instead of a written assignment?”Meanwhile, back in commercial reality, Microsoft made Office available online for free just like Google Docs, to undermine the pivotal argument of anyone peddling desertion of Office.The long and the short of it is that anyone who actively objects to Office is signing up for ongoing inconvenience and does so for ideological reasons.These people were never going to be customers anyway. This is why I say that the effect on sales wasn’t just low, it was zero.
What are the chances of Microsoft going Bankrupt in 4 years?
Microsoft has revenues of around US$100bn p/a, of which around US$25bn is profit. They have cash reserves of around US$125bn.So, even if their profit of US$25bn turned to a loss of US$25bn, which ain’t happening, they’d still survive for 5 years on their cash reserves alone.And if that was actually happening they’d be slashing costs left right and centre and it’d extend well beyond 5 years.And once their cash runs out they can still go to the capital markets to raise more money.They've been badly run for almost two decades, but with Satya Nadella in charge they’re looking in much better shape, so the figures are likely to improve, not deteriorate.So the chances of them going bust in 4 years? It ain’t happening.BTW their stock is way overvalued relative to Google’s.
Anyone tired of having to buy Chinese "junk" when American made goods aren't available?
It seems to me that the United States has put itself out of business in manufacturing consumer goods. Everything in the stores, in the catalogs is marked "Made in China." Often these are inferior goods to what we were once used to here in the U.S. when American manufactures, and American workers, took pride in products. Every time I get exasperated with something I bought from China, I say under my breath, "Chinese Junk," and I'll comment to my wife that someday we'll be made in China, too. Seems to me that the U.S. has given away an important part of its economy and such folly may come back to bite us. What do you think?
Is Microsoft intentionally slowing down Chrome so people start to use Edge?
No, the blowback would be too big a risk. Also, Chrome is actually faster than Edge anyway, so if they were slowing it down, they’re not doing a good enough job of it to give Edge the edge.When I say faster, I don’t mean JS benchmarks – I mean all the many routine user actions and interactions with the browser. For example, opening a new tab. Chrome is much faster. Chrome is also much faster to get to the point of being able to open a new tab after launching the browser. Edge can take a whole minute before it lets you open a new tab.Chrome is faster at switching tabs, setting a favorite/bookmark, interacting with plugins, etc. Everything just seems to happen much more smoothly and quickly in Chrome – it’s quite an achievement, probably the best client software ever built. Edge’s UI is sticky in comparison, as was Firefox’s for years – lots of little delays and stickiness for routine UI operations. (Now, the new Firefox “Quantum” seems far quicker and slicker than before, better than Edge, and maybe as good as Chrome.)There is one way Chrome and Edge undermine each other on Windows 10. Google constantly nags Edge users with messages to use Chrome whenever you visit a Google property like Google.com, Gmail, etc. It never stops, no matter how many times they’ve nagged you and how many times you’ve dismissed the popup. They actually say that Google, the search engine, “works better in Chrome”. WTF? How does that work? What about Google works better in Chrome? All we care about are the search results and speed, and there isn’t a noticeable difference in speed (Edge won a lot of benchmarks early on, but I haven’t kept up, and Google the search engine is one of the fastest sites on the web – too fast in all browsers to notice speed differences.)Windows nags with similar messages when people use Chrome or FIrefox, but less frequently. Recently the message was that Edge was more secure than Chrome because it detected 20 or 30 percent more social malware or something. This is actually true at least, but I forget what they mean by social malware, if it involves social engineering or what. Edge also initially prevents users from setting Google as the default search engine because Satya Nadella has inexcusably failed to manage the conflicts of interest between the Bing team and the quality of Microsoft’s products that matter and the user experience with those products.
Do you think that it is correct for the European Commission to restrict mergers between American companies...?
I am for pure American free style market. and you know that free market has limitation. EC has their own regulations, they want to protect their companies also. Just like someone want to sell something to your house. They need your permission in writing or phone appointment to let you open your door for them to coming your house. So your question is happen to largest scale on the planet. Do you remember recently, Boeing file a complain EU company getting a contract to build palnes in Mobile , Alabama? It worked both way One more , last two years, did you remember Google, Microsoft getting a lot of criticisms for installing firewall for CHINESE COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT filter anything negative against the chinese government. so they support the Chinese people or Chinese Government in this case. you know that the government in China is the most oppresive form of government. How come a two free styles companies supporting the oppresive government. Did it coming down who getting the fair share of money?