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Microsoft Revenue Up, Tries to Hook Third World

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the one-born-every-minute dept.

rocketjam writes "Microsoft reported record revenue for the last quarter Thursday due to increased sales of personal computers. Analysts were impressed with the company's overall performance, however they expressed concern about the continuing drop in unearned revenue, reflecting Microsoft's difficulty in signing up customers for long-term, sustainable business contracts. The $400 million drop in unearned revenue was less than the drop in the last quarter but still exceeded many analyst's expectations. The company's continuing problem in gaining long-term contracts is generally attributed to growing security concerns among customers and company's unwillingness to go along with Microsoft's 'Software Assurance' upgrade subscription plan." Also in the news: Microsoft is donating a pile of software to the United Nations -- retail value, $1 billion; wholesale value, maybe $1 million or so -- attempting to hook the Third World on Microsoft software.

12 of 489 comments (clear)

  1. Come on, Michael... by grub · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Mikey adds " .. retail value, $1 billion; wholesale value, maybe $1 million or so "

    Do you have any real data to back this up, Michael, or is this yet another of your unnecessary and unwanted biased editorials? Not that I'm in the pro-Microsoft camp but a 1000-to-1 profit line sounds pretty high. This is shoddy "journalism".

    Feel free to bitch slap me and any subsequent thread.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:Come on, Michael... by grub · · Score: 4, Insightful


      Storing these copies in warehouses costs money. Shipping the product costs money. Development costs money. Bug fixes (which MS does) costs money...

      Microsoft doesn't tell their people to go home after they release V1.0 of a product.

      man.. defending MS.. next thing you know I'll be going to church..

      --
      Trolling is a art,
    2. Re:Come on, Michael... by Chess_the_cat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't be so condescending. It's not artificial value at all. I, as a consumer who can't write my own code, assign it a value. And you know what? To me XP *is* worth $200. And apparently, there are millions of people just like me. Granted, to you it may be worthless. So all in all, let's let the Third World decide what's it worth to them. They don't have to accept this donation you know. Give them a little more credit. I'm sure they know all about Linux and how it's free.

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  2. "Hook" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    attempting to hook the Third World on Microsoft software

    While I'm an avid Linux fan, why do I get the feeling that if a large Linux distributor like Red Hat arranged for a glut of software to be sent to UN countries, the headline would have been slightly more flattering? Something like "generously supplied Third World coutries with Linux software" instead of the negative connotations implied with "hook" that is attached to Microsoft's gesture.

  3. Hooking by jimhill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't see that it really matters if Microsoft tries to "hook" the Third World on their products. The Third World can't _afford_ Microsoft prices (sort of what makes them Third World) and so if they are using Microsoft products it will be at no gain to the company's bottom line.

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  4. Re:"the third world" by sTalking_Goat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not neccisarily. During the 90's MS knew that software priacy in China (real copy/sell piracy not ??AA piracy...)was big in China, but they let it happen because they the Chinese would get 'hooked' and MS products and then MS could really turn the screws and milk them. Drug dealer tactics. The first one is always free.

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    My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...

  5. Re:"the third world" by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, but there are a few benefits to this:

    1) They have a chance to get in on the ground floor in those countries. If all the people there are used to using MS software, guess what they'll keep using if/when the economy starts to get going?

    2) It pushes the numbers of people using Windows up, which is what a lot of PHBs look at. "Why would we switch over to Linux when 99% of the world uses Windows?!"

    3) Tax write-off.

    4) Looks good to consumers - "Wow, they're so generous!"

    5) Maybe MS just felt like being nice. There's no exclusivity agreement, so even if the people there take the free software, there's nothing stopping them from using alternative software if they feel like it. Pretty cool of MS.

  6. It's like this.. by loconet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A friend of my put it best ..

    "In other news, crack dealers give first hit of crack for free to kids"

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    [alk]
  7. Profit was not up by Tough+Love · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Read the statements again. 3 month income is down, year over year.

    Microsoft is trying to spin this as improved results, but they are just playing a shell game. Note that the increase revenue is more than balanced by increased expenses. Translation: Microsoft is buying sales and hiding the costs. Translation of the translation: Microsoft is being forced to offer heavy incentives to move their tired old products. Translation of the translation of the translation: a million Penguin bites really do hurt.

    --
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  8. Re:Donating is a good thing by endoftheroadmatt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Please correct me if I'm wrong, but: The desktop OS/Office Software market is not your typical 2-3 major-player market. Microsoft is a convicted monopolist with over 90% market share. This is not an offer of help, this is a predatory offer to stop 3rd world countries from adopting Open Source Software.

  9. Yeah, sure, why not by andih8u · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft is obviously doing this just to hook the third world. Its not like they, nor Bill Gates have ever made any charitable donations before, right?

    Maybe one day slashdot will get rid of Michael and will slowly become a respectable news source again.

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    slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
  10. Re:sloppy reporting by One+Louder · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It really depends upon what you consider the "value" of donated software - is it simply the costs of the media, or the artificially constructed retail price? What Michael was alluding to was not that Microsoft's software is worth only 0.1% of the retail price, but rather that the actual hard cost to Microsoft for the donation is orders of magnitude less than the fake "value". Where this is important is at tax write-off (or press release) time - they donate a CD with Office that costs them $0.05, and can try to write off $300. In some cases it's even less - they donate a single CD and grant a site license.

    If you like, I'll give you $1000 worth of software - it's easy because I can arbitrarily set the "value" of a trivial chunk of code at $1000 and be no different that what Microsoft is doing here. This is why Microsoft likes to donate software or vouchers for software (most which usually come back to them) instead of cash.