Satchel Paige He Ain't

Apple Insider posted a new set of comments from Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer. He seems to be saying that Apple's recent moves are of no concern. Yet as the immortal baseball legend Satchel Paige said "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." The Insider article has the following quotes - "Share versus Apple, you know, we think we may have ticked up a little tick," Ballmer said at the 2009 Financial Analyst Meeting, "but when you get right down to it, it's a rounding error. Apple's share change, plus or minus from ours, they took a little share a couple quarters, we took share back a couple quarters."

"The Microsoft executive said he expects Windows to continue to trade market share with Mac OS X back and forth, though he added he feels taking customers from Apple is a limited resource."

"Apple's share globally cost us nothing," he said. "Now, hopefully, we will take share back from Apple, but you know, Apple still only sells about 10 million PCs, so it is a limited opportunity." Note - according to CNET both in the Windows PC platform and in the Mobile Aps category - Windows based machines are a smaller share of the market than they were a year ago.

Posted above are three comparisons from Wolfram's new Web based utility called Alpha. Alpha has some remarkable capabilities to tie things together. The top chart does some simple market comparisons. Apple's employees produce about $300,000 more per person than Microsoft's. Earnings per share are better by three and a half times. The second chart looks at basic numbers of shareholder return. Even if you add in Microsoft's dividend the return from holding Apple stock over varying periods of time - is significantly greater. The third chart compares volatility of the two companies versus return. As tech companies both experience volatility but the reward for Apple's volatility is twice that of Microsoft's.

Also posted is a recording of Ballmer trying to show negatives on Apple and Linux in the same analyst call. The odd thing about it is he does not seem to get that his market is changing. You can get Linux for free and you can create pretty easily an environment that fits your needs. That is why the clothing retailed the GAP switched to Linux. Perhaps it might be useful to send Mr. Ballmer a copy of Chris Anderson's new book (or maybe not).

One wonders who Mr. Ballmer thinks he works for.