Microsoft: liderazgo cuestionado

La noticia exagera un poco el hecho, ya que la cotización en bolsa de un día no significa necesariamente que esa valuación se mantendrá, digamos, la semana que viene, especialmente en un marco volátil como el de estos dias. Pero el hecho que New York Times (Miguel Helft y Ashlee Vance) destaca hoy, es simbólico: hoy Apple superó el valor de bolsa de Microsoft:

In intraday trading in the afternoon session, Apple shares rose 1.8 percent, which gave the company a value of $227.1 billion. Shares of Microsoft declined about 1 percent, giving the company a market capitalization of $226.3 billion.

The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $282 billion.

La noticia se suma a la reorganización de algunas áreas de Microsoft, y la salida de dos importantes ejecutivos (Robbie Bach y J. Allard). Es una cuestión de adecuación y reacción a los requerimientos actuales del mercado. Dice NYTimes:

This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history, as Apple had been given up for dead only a decade earlier. But the rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds a cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.

Microsoft, with its Windows and Office software franchises, has dominated the relationship most people had with their computers for almost two decades and that was reflected in its stock market capitalization. But the click-clack of the keyboard has ceded ground to the swoosh of a finger across a smartphone’s touch-screen.

Si bien probablemente Microsoft seguirá adelante, estos son signos claros de su inadecuación al estado de la industria...