Microsoft (MSFT)

[The Chartist]

The more you look at the Microsoft chart very closely and the trend line that supports it, the more you will start to see that the technical support is not all that solid, because it looks too steep and the fluctuation is too narrow.

I can imagine that many technical investors would wait for Microsoft stock to pullback a bit, and find the next solid support before buying it, but not now.

http://www.chart-dow-stocks.com/microsoft-stock.html

Even though the support line has done very well supporting and attracting buyers in the last 7 months, it’s not a solid technical support line.

It’s will be interesting to see how long it can continue to support buyers, which I don’t think for long. I would never buy this stock here and now.

And realize that this is not a recommendation to buy or sell or wait, it’s just a learning tool and also an example.

[peter]

Henry,

I see you point. I know places outside of France where stuff can be so rude that you wish there was a computer. I hope though that this is not a general trend and not what the restaurant industry is about. For me, a restaurant is a nice place where you can take your time to eat a good meal, interact with nice people. To eat fast, you go to a self-service, where you can still eat a good meal cooked by a chef, just that all the interaction and waiting time are reduced to a minimum. There is one or two persons that clean the tables, but everything else is taken care of by the customers themselves. To me it looks like a good enough way to reduce costs.

Anyway, I don't negate your point about technological advances and their effect on the industry. It's just that I don't see the need to mention multiple times one potential product from one specific company when talking about general trends. It just scratches my eyes.


Best regards,

Peter.

[HenryTo]

Peter,

It is all about controlling costs in the restaurant industry. In this case, technology can be a very useful means for controlling costs, especially in the US fast food and casual dining industry.

Not unlike other industries, there will always be others who would like a full service restaurant, such as what folks look for when they want a generally better shopping experience, whether it is going to a Bose store vs. going to Wal-Mart, etc (or a full service car wash vs. a quick rinse at your local gas station). But there are others too, such as when one goes into an AppleBees or McDonalds, and personally, I would just like service to be as quickly as possible without my having talking to anyone.

This technology of Microsoft is just one way of getting there, but there will be other ways and other technologies available. Like I said, it is all about controlling costs - and technology will replace labor as long as either or both of the following occur:

1) Costs of technology decline to the point where it is cheaper to implement the technology over the long-run than hiring labor

2) Costs of labor rise to the point where it is more economical to replace labor with technology (think of the latest rise in US minimum wage laws this year, and then to $7.25 by 2009).

To the extent that a certain technology and that a certain technological trend will affect the U.S. general population or the U.S. economy, then it will get a mention here - either in this forum or in our commentaries. This technology can be used for not only simply ordering food or paying your bill (and far from playing video games), but can also detect whether your cup needs filling and what your contents are, etc. It can also remember your dining experience (just log in the next time you go there) and recommend dishes the next time you go there - much better than most waiters can. Besides, I have also mentioned other technologies, e.g. the trend of supercomputing, bandwidth, etc.

Also, I don't mean any offense, but I don't believe that France can be a reference for the restaurant industry here in the US or in any parts of Asia. As a matter of fact, Asia is on the extreme in the opposite end. They want their food served fast, cheap, and at a minimal hassle. If they can do away with a wait staff tomorrow, then they will, and it will be greatly embraced by most of the population.

Best regards,

Henry

[peter]

Hi,

Is it just me or there is a little too much of this "Surface" technology on Marketthoughts lately? I like the general content of this site, but the constant mention of this "Surface" thingy, and how it will revolutionize the restaurant business ruins the overall experience for me.

Personally I don't see anything extraordinary in this technology and I don't think it will take over restaurant industry anytime soon. In any case in France it won't and I think France can be considered a reference in this field. Perhaps by restaurants you mean fast food chains, but even there I hardly see something like this being implemented. In my opinion restaurants is not about going out and playing on a computer with your friends.

Perhaps my opinion is biased, I activate in IT field, but in my view your take on this technology is too light and overly enthusiastic. I would prefer that you stick to what you are good at.


Best regards,

Peter

[HenryTo]

Microsoft "Surface" Technology featured on a Popular Mechanics video. A must-see:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid932579976?bclid=932553050&bctid=93374293

[sonoop]

I wouldn't go for MSFT. They are a maturing co.

[rffrydr]

Vista coming through for Microsoft--just like you said it would, M. H. --May even be reflecting in the GDP electronics inflation numbers (since it can't be hardware).
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[rffrydr]

They have to since so much in Vista is already in Linnux and Mac systems. Meanwhile back at the Office:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/17273613
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[HenryTo]

MSFT Vienna to debut in 2009. Pretty aggressive schedule based on the five-year lag between XP and Vista:

http://www.dailytech.com/Microsofts+Vienna+Due+in+2009/article6053.htm

[rffrydr]

Vista off to a bumpy start:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=8441
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[HenryTo]

Diesel, thanks for the link.

Here is an interesting article from Symantec on MSFT Vista. Look at the comments below. Seems like folks are defending MSFT more than they are of Symantec.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6103

Quote: My sentiments exactly. Symantecs consumer product line has been going down hill for years. Each year less effcient and more bloated than the year before. Maybe this will get more people to switch anti-virus solutions (the rest of Norton's security products shouldn't be required with Vista). There are plenty of low-cost or no-cost alternatives.

I think the real reason for this is that Symantec feels that Microsoft is trying to put them out of business. Symantec's business has relied on the massive security flaws in Windows for years. Microsoft is closeing a good number of those holes with Vista (although not all), so they are trying to fight back to justify their existance.

It's simple corporate darwinism. Build better products or die, Symantec.

[diesel]

Interesting article about apple making a play for the operating system market that a few of you might find interesting. FSource: www.overclockers.com

Dump The Mac?

For years and years when people have asked "Why won't Apple let me run MacOS on my PC?" the standard reply has been, "Because Apple would lose all its hardware sales."

We may be coming to a time when the response to that answer will become "So what?"

For many years, Apple anchored itself to the desktop Mac. Now, the desktop Mac has become an anchor to Apple's growth. Sales have remained static, indeed, Apple may have sold more desktop Macs in 1995 than they do today.

Last quarter, desktop sales represented only 13.5% of Apple's sales, compared to almost 50% for iPods and aver 20% for Macnotebooks.

The mix of desktops have also shifted, reducing the desktop Mac's profitability. Apple no longer breaks down desktop sales, but when they last did in 2004, only about 30% of desktop sales were high-margin Powermac sales, the rest were lower-margin iMac sales. It's doubtful this situation has gotten better since then, and it's probably gotten worse.

It's hard to see what else Apple can do to increase desktop sales and still make money.

In comparison to that, one wonders how many copies of MacOS X would be bought for PCs if it would work on PCs, especially given the lackluster reception of Vista. Outside of writing a lot more drivers, Apple would have to spend little more on MacOS X, and even if they got only 10$ of the OS market place, that would probably be a lot more profitable than at least their desktop sales.

A few other things have changed over the past few years, too. There is now a luxury PC industry out there. Even the most expensive Macs look downright cheap compared to some of the offerings out there.

Mr. Jobs has been doing a lot of odd things lately, too. He certainly got everyone's attention by switching to Intel, but that was just the last step of the PC-ification of the Mac that started in earnest when he came back to run Apple.

Before the Intel switch, outside of the CPU and motherboard, a Mac was a PC, using off-the-shelf PC components. Now a Mac IS a PC, just as much as a Dell.

More recently, Apple Computer became Apple. Yes, this could well be simply an acknowledgement that Apple is about more than computers these days, or it might end up meaning more than that.

Mr. Jobs also recently published his thoughts opposing DRM. This is very odd given that all his computers use DRM to protect the MacOS X franchise. Unless, of course, somebody was going to announce that his company was going to drop their DRM.

Not saying the following is going to happen. Not saying the following is more likely than not to happen. I am saying the following is no longer inconceivable at some point in the future:

Maybe Apple wants to get rid of those units that are not growing and serve as an anchor on Apple's profitablity. Maybe Apple looks at Redmond and sees a grossly bloated bureaucracy increasing incapable of action ready to be taken. Maybe somebody very important at Apple thinks it's finally, finally payback time for the guy who beat him out of the PC industry.

So maybe Apple sells the desktop or maybe all the computer division to some other (maybe a luxury PC company, maybe a computer company out to upgrade its image) or spins it off to a separate company. Maybe that's the way to get back to making "insanely great computers" (or at least insanely priced) rather than pretty Dells with a different OS.

Maybe, in one of the most dramatic speeches in PC history, somebody very important at Apple says, "Take down that wall, music companies. we're taking down ours" and then introduce a version of MacOS X that will allow for ugly Dells with a different OS (run very happily on a Dell (maybe reserving some "ultimate" MacOS X that is DRMed for the formerly Appled Macs, or the laptops, the media won't notice that). Or maybe not even that.

In other words, turn the Mac into a really elite machine for those who need that, and for everyone else, if the iPoders won't come to the Mac, MacOS X will come to the iPoders.

I bet Bill would really like that.

How many copies of MacOS X do you think Apple could sell to the PC world? Given MS's profit margins, selling some tens of millions of OS X copies would have to have a higher profit margin than than some hundreds of thousands of Macs, with a lot less cost and effort.

Would you buy one? I'd certainly give it a shot in a dual-boot system.

Again, not saying it's going to happen, but it's making more and more sense for it to happen.