Microsoft cash cow products

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What are you looking for? Preferences Community Newsletters Log Out. Written by Mary Jo Foley , Contributor. Full Bio. Windows and Office: They've been Microsoft's two biggest cash cows since My Profile Log Out. Moreover, Microsoft Corporation operates in gaming industry, X-box and other complementary product and software related to the product is also the creation of company.

Gigantic Corporation like Microsoft is not easy to manage, as mentioned in introduction that, Corporation has multiple operating segment and each segment operates in distinct industry. For such organization formulation of strategy can be very complicated for top-level management. Therefore, to cope with the problem top-level managers use tools to formulate distinct strategy for each segment according to its needs.

BSG Matrix is one of the tool which can be useful for top level manager to cope with dilemmas like, which strategy should be adopted for which segment? This matrix was specially designed for those companies which have multiple profit centers or operates in multiple industries. BCG Matrix is a four quadrants graphic representation of multiple segments, which can be analyze by means of Market share and Industry sales growth rate. BCG matrix examination of Microsoft is given below. Those segments are included into the category of Question mark which have low relative market share and operate in high sales growth industry.

As applications have shifted into the cloud so have productivity suites, and Google created Google Docs to directly take advantage of this trend. Google Docs offers Office alternatives directly in the browser, and documents can be stored in Google's cloud storage system and shared with other users. Like the free office suites before it Google Docs is popular among home users but has yet to make substantial progress in the enterprise.

Google has been pushing into the enterprise market, though, and the company does have a few big wins. But Microsoft is heavily entrenched, with long-term customers unlikely to jump ship. Google may slowly win some market share from Microsoft, but in the end Microsoft will likely still be dominant. Google isn't alone in pushing office apps to the cloud. Microsoft released Office along with the newest version of Office, a subscription-based version of the productivity suite.

Instead of paying a large upfront fee, Office is offered for a low cost per user per month, much like Google Docs in the enterprise. Office doesn't run in the browser, however, which makes it faster and more responsive than Google Docs. Documents can be saved to SkyDrive, Microsoft's cloud storage alternative, and edited on mobile devices with ease. The subscription model allows Microsoft to avoid the trouble of having to resell Office to customers every few years and instead collect a steady stream of recurring revenue.

Google Docs is more basic than Office, making complex documents difficult to deal with. While Office certainly has a learning curve its power and feature-set are unmatched. These markets have a sustainable demand but do not see significant growth or innovation any longer. Take the printer market, for example. It witnesses slow growth but has a steady demand. A dominant player in the printer market is HP or the Hewlett-Packard company. The printing division alone earned the company a revenue of A cash cow is a business division or product with a significant market share in a mature market that guarantees substantially high returns on investment.

The money generated from this division is high enough to support other innovations by the company.