Frankly, I don't care about what Microsoft thinks about this. Why? Because GOOG out-performed MSFT by 400% over the past five years.

And yes, I own *both* stocks.

As a MSFT shareholder, I think Microsoft should shut their mouths and get back to increasing shareholder value.

I think MS has outperformed google in the past 20 years, though. No one expects MS to be a growth company.

You can't really compare MSFT with GOOG over twenty years since GOOG had their IPO in 2004.

However, you can compare MSFT with CSCO over twenty years. According to Yahoo! Stocks, it looks like CSCO beats MSFT handily.

@cv:

What do you want them to grow? Operating system or Office software market share?

What they need is to diversify into growth industries. This is why you have an Xbox, a Zune, and access MSN for content.

Oh, you don't? Okay. So I guess introducing new products is risky, success is not inevitable even for good companies full of smart people, and it's hard to broaden the scope of a company when it's so successful.

But then again, at least MSFT is trying. Show me an income-earning product in GOOG's annual report not named search. Show me an analysis of an upcoming product expected to provide a revenue stream that even has the potential to be as robust. If you can't, show me why exactly we're expecting GOOG to continue to grow at such a meteoric pace?

We're not expecting Google to grow at a meteoric pace. However, *I* do expect to Google to outpace Microsoft for the near-term.