Willy,
I have been asking myself the same questions since becoming aware of this thread. MSFT, from my perspective, is dominate in several areas. It is without a doubt a silver backed gorilla. But as I consider the future, I wonder about their competitive advantage going forward, especially in their ability to create and dominate new tornados. This is not to say that MSFT will not continue to be wildly profitable or an excellent investment, quite the contrary in fact. But when considering GG rules and theories, the following may explain why other companies dominate our discussion.
My thought is based on MSFT's dominance which is all leveraged from the operating system. This was a position of strength as long as the "thick client" paradigm continues. Since the future appears to dominated by mobile, thin browser, easy access and wireless based, you have to wonder about MSFT's competitive advantage in that form factor. Before anyone gets their flame thrower fired up, understand I am not saying that Windows and it's dominance on the desktop is losing ground. I am simply stating that in the future, people will be accessing data in far more practical ways then through a screen, keyboard and mouse. MSFT's problems in the CE world are well documented. From my perspective, the paradigm is shifting. I consider the box makers scramble to more of an "appliance" approach as signal on this direction along with the obvious growth and awareness in wireless, handhelds and other many other new products being introduced everyday.
On the database front, while SQL is experiencing a decent level of acceptance, there continues to be a reluctance in the IS world to move away from Oracle in mission critical applications. IBM seems to be the only real threat to Oracle's domincance in this area.
Cisco, on the other hand, has an uncanny knack to produce tornados and dominate them at will. Intel, while having produced an excellent value chain, is dependent on several factors and has competition at every corner. Gateways' announcements this week seem to prove this out.
Ok, this is my second lengthy post in one day. Can you tell it's raining here?? |
