Better Buy: Microsoft vs. IBM (HPQ, MSFT)

Better Buy: Microsoft vs. IBM

The following video is part of our "Motley Fool Conversations" series, in which Motley Fool senior technology analyst Eric Bleeker and chief technology officer Jeremy Phillips discuss emerging trends in technology.

In today's edition, Jeremy and Eric pit Microsoft against IBM to decide which one of these IT giants is the better buy. While Eric and Jeremy find Microsoft to be a compelling valuation, Eric deems IBM's leadership to be the trump card. Watch below for full analysis of these two IT leaders.

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Both Eric Bleeker and Jeremy Phillips own shares of no companies listed above. The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft and IBM. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of and creating a bull call spread position in Microsoft. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Comments from our Foolish Readers

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Report this Comment On October 19, 2011, at 4:54 AM, cathsteve2002 wrote:

Man, I thought that two techies would talk more about, well, the technology of both companies. Because that is what really separates MS from IBM. When you use technologies from both companies - like I do - MS wins hands down every single time. DB2 is horrible to work with compared to SQL Server. I spent weeks trying to tune and trace Wepshere Commerce Server (yes, the one that brought down Target). MS's competitor is not IBM; it is open source software. IBM is a dinosaur. It is REALLY HARD to try and find solutions when there is a problem and I think that is done strategically so that you HAVE to work with their consultants. Obfuscation by design is not a good business practice. And I have to say that there are much better competitors when it comes to cloud (SalesForce and Amazon for example) and virtualization (VMWare and MS Hyper-V).
Sorry guys, but you can talk finance all you want but an IT company still needs to have good IT products, and IBM just doesn't.
Report this Comment On October 19, 2011, at 5:49 PM, TMFRhino wrote:

Hey cathsteve2002,
I really like MSFT's Servers & Tools business and think they're doing great; its just too small a piece to move the needle (relative to other parts of their business). Thanks for the comments though, always love seeing sentiment from the trenches, so to say.
Fool on!
-Eric

updated 2 hours ago Sponsored by:
	DOW	12,938.67	-27.02	-0.21%
	S&P 500	1,357.66	-4.55	-0.33%
	NASD	2,933.17	-15.40	-0.52%

MSFT	$31.27		-0.17	-0.54%
Microsoft Corp		CAPS Rating:

HPQ	$28.94		-0.41	-1.40%
Hewlett-Packard Co…		CAPS Rating:

3

Better Buy: Microsoft vs. IBM

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Report this Comment On October 19, 2011, at 4:54 AM, cathsteve2002 wrote:

Report this Comment On October 19, 2011, at 5:49 PM, TMFRhino wrote:

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