Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft's Mac Business Unit

Posted by michael on from the oil-and-water dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an interesting piece on the folks who work at the Mac Business Unit for Microsoft."

2 of 460 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Macs have a purpose by soft_guy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Try a few hundred (maybe even thousand) Macs. I used to a Mac developer at Microsoft. We had plenty of machines.

    When I was there, they were getting rid of some of their first generation PowerPC Macintoshes. I think in one day they threw away like 500 PowerMac 6100,7100, and 8100s. These were all working units that were going to the landfill because they were out of date. Most companies would have donated them to schools, but Microsoft doesn't donate their used Macs to schools because they figure that's one fewer DOS or Windows license that they won't sell.

    And it wasn't like those 500 machines weren't being replaced. They were replacing them with G3s and G4s at that time just as fast as they were throwing the old ones out.

    --
    Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
  2. Re:try bread and butter by WhoDaresWins · · Score: 5, Informative
    and a profit-making division at Microsoft is getting be something of a rarity what with the company loosing money through the nose in countless divisions. In fact, I believe there's only one division more profitable- the OS division.
    What utter nonsense are you talking about? Don't go about inventing facts when you don't know what the real facts are. Out of Microsoft's 7 divisions, 4 make a profit. Three of those 4 divisions make a huge profits: Client (OS), Info Worker (Office), and Server & Tools. The Business Solutions and Mobile & Embedded Devices divisions are small and incubating businesses so they don't make much of a profit now. The really big division that makes a loss is Home & Entertainment and thats primarily due to XBox. So no you are totally wrong about Microsoft having only one division that makes a profit. Next time don't spout your own imagination as facts. You can check the Microsoft profit and loss figures for each division in the Form 10Q SEC filings that Microsoft makes. Here are the relevant numbers from that report -

    (In millions) Operating Income/Loss Three Months Ended Sept.30 2003
    Client 2,264
    Server and Tools 370
    Information Worker 1,591
    Microsoft Business Solutions -79
    MSN 58
    Mobile and Embedded Devices -32
    Home and Entertainment -273