ActiveX and open, plus market cap:
Reg said, "I think what they meant was that Active X is open because it runs on the majority of machines/desktops out there, and not platforms." Sure, nobody denies Windows dominance, but that doesn't
mean that Microsoft gets to go into 1984 Newspeak mode with words
it has a problem with. Java runs on a strict superset of what
ActiveX runs on. Of course, in Windows World, ActiveX is indeed
open. Embrace and Demolish!
Back into my neophyte investor mode, without getting into the
details of your discussion with Gerald, my naive understanding
is that msft stock has to go up for it to be a good investment (duh),
and modulo stock buybacks, that means the market cap better be
rising too, at a good rate relative to the rest of the market.
There's also all those generous stock options given to an ever
rising employee base which presumably adds to the shares outstanding,
thus increasing the market cap more? Does microsoft do significant
buybacks? What is the history of shares outstanding?
I'm sure pe==growth rate is just an investing rule of thumb; as an ex physical scientist I can't grok the units in that comparison. But for a stock that doesn't pay dividends, there has to be a lot of pressure to keep earnings growing, right? The problem I see for Microsoft is that it's a lot harder for them to grow 20% or so a year from a base of $10billion sales/ $2+ billion earnings? than it is for other software companies working from a much smaller base. They get their cut on every PC sold, of course, but that's not enough, is it? It's easy to understand their drive to dominate when you realize how much revenue they need to make a revenue or earning impact; netscape's current $100million/quarter revenue wouldn't be quite invisible, and there's growth potential to be sure, but ...
Jeez, I just looked up ORCL for comparision, $24 billion market cap,
46+ P/E. No wonder MSFT is after the db market; this makes nscp
look like peanuts. Cheers, Dan. |
