Luc,
You have no clue about the s/w employment scene, right?
Higher salaries? Do you really think the best and the brightest work for salaries any more? Have you checked the options packages that are thrown around these days? Given that unemployment for the technology sector is close to 0, how much tighter is it going to get? In any case, joining an old-tech company is decidedly uncool these days.
And how much do s/w companies pay for advertisement as a percentage of their total budget? Sorry, but it is small, very small. Not quite like the consumer packaged goods industry, you know? In fact, there was a recent article in the Harvard Business Review making the case for improved brand management on part of high tech executives. Well, may be some time in the future, but not now. Advertisement budgets remain small and justifiably so, as product differentiation is done not at consumer level, but at consulting level.
In fact, if indeed MSFT is broken up, will the parts compete in the s/w market at all? What if one part gets the O/S, the second the applications, and the third the Net business (and are forbidden by the Govt. to try and enter each other territories lest monopolies develop again)?
But let's assume that there will be competition. Anyone familiar with the s/w market (I can see that you are not) knows that in such a scenerio what goes up is not cost, but discounts. So, yes, it brings down margins.
But not costs.
Well, I guess it doesn't matter to you, given how many times you have said completely erroneous things in public.
-BGR.
PS: BTW, call me as many names as you want but I will continue to point out the utterly ridiculous nature of your posts. <VBG> |
