by CuriosityBout
Microsoft, for 3 decades, has stayed in the top 10 most valuable companies. Let’s put that in perspective. In 2000, GE was the most valuable company, and today it’s desperate. Sears, same thing. And while Apple and Amazon surpassed $1 trillion market cap before cratering recently, Microsoft stock continually stays strong. And Google is down for the year.
Personally, I think Microsoft has a strong long term vision, strong brand, and strong lead in technology in general. This year we saw Amazon totally destroy its goodwill with the public with the whole HQ2 sham and the Stop BEZOS Bill, we saw Apple get greedy with a costly iteration of the iPhone this year that was so boring, they need to make more of last year’s iPhone X model because people aren’t upgrading or buying this year’s minor upgrade, and we saw Facebook have the largest single day stock drop in US history, as their userbase stagnated and privacy scandals continue to be uncovered for this company.
Microsoft wasn’t always the good guy, and they were almost broken up in the 90’s and early 2000’s for being a monopoly. But then Apple came along with the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad, and Microsoft was caught flat footed. Google dominated search, and Amazon got online retail. But this didn’t lead to Microsoft getting weaker, if anything it lead to Microsoft reforming its ways, working with the linux community and gaining enough trust to acquire GitHub, as well as establishing itself in social networking with buying LinkedIn.
At this point Microsoft may not be the hip/cool/sexy company everyone wants to pour their money into, but they are stable, consistent, and reliable. They don’t get greedy, they seem to have their internal affairs in order for the most part, and most importantly, they are at the forefront of augmented and virtual reality with Hololens and other headsets, and considering Apple is dipping their toe in augmented reality with apps like Measure, Google is trying out Daydream View, and Facebook bought Oculus for $3 billion, there is a real race to crack the code in VR and AR, something the tech community has tried to do for decades but couldn’t because the technology wasn’t there yet and they don’t know the best form it should take. I used to be a skeptic of VR, then I tried out a headset at the Microsoft store and it blew me away at how incredible the experience was.
The future of tech is not a speaker that listens to your conversations and gets you to buy stuff (Amazon), the future of tech is creating a second reality with VR and a better reality with AR.