Microsoft is still here, and prospering

Microsoft's Q2 earnings report displayed how robust the redmond corporate is. Despite Apple's and Google's dominance in the smart phone market and internet search market, respectively, Microsoft's dominance in the operating system market pays off.

For some reason, the NY times article that analyzes their earnings I quoted above, is assuming that M.S is unhappy with its major income coming from businesses and not the home market, like Apple.

Sometimes people just surprise me in their poor analysis. Microsoft has always been ahead of Apple in the O.S market, because it understood businesses needs better than Apple, and in the cost/benefit test, Microsoft's products - both the Operating System and the Office suite, were clear market leaders.
The wide adoption of Windows 7 in businesses means bad news for both Google and Apple:

• It means that if Microsoft's smartphones would reach the cost/benefit level people have learned to expect from microsoft, businesses will prefer them, for ease of use and maintenance, both for users and administrators. For that to happen, Microsoft will need to significantly improve their smartphones and improve Windows mobile quite significantly, while lowering prices. If you think it is improbable, remember what happend in the 90's on the web-browsers market. Once upon a time Microsoft seemed like the clear loser on that market, just like it appears now on the smartphones front.
• And it means, that any operating system trying to penetrate the market, has to compete against an operating system that is enjoying a high level of loyalty.