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Microsoft Posts Record Earnings
sriram_2001 writes "Microsoft has just had a record quarter where their profits have doubled from the previous quarter. Total sales are at $10 billion, exceeding both internal and external expectations. Microsoft has attributed the rise in earnings to increased server sales (where *nix-based systems are supposed to be doing well) and more XBox units being sold. For a company that most Slashdotters would say is on the decline, Microsoft sure has weird financial results!" To put it in perspective, Microsoft's income is about the same as New York State receives in taxes - below California, and well above the other 48 states.
I thought the Gates Borg icon had a larger smile this morning. Now I know why.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I know vulnerability in their software probably generated these incorrect numbers.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
everyone knows 2005 is the year of Linux. I don't care what their "profits" show, but we've got M$ exactly where we want them
Server Sales 18% up - thats quite a share :-). Especially if you regard how hardware sales of servers developed in the end of last year:
Hewlett-Packard: +21%
Dell: +28%
IBM: +36%
(Gartner quote)
http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P243
There have to be quite a couple of linux- and other boxes, if Microsoft ist just +18%.
Anybody got more precise infos on actual sales of iron?
btw: Profits are also significantly up because of the cut in personell.
Details on different aspects of server sales: http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=C0_5_1
For a company that most Slashdotters would say is on the decline, Microsoft sure has weird financial results!
/. community?
g )
What is with the crop of stories that attempt to goad the entire
First, I thought: "Was that parting shot really necessary?" Then I realised that the article submitter is a Microsoft fanboy
Troll.
P.S. If you want the editor to screen stories more carefully, please send your concerns to (daddypants)_AT_*NO_SPAM_*(slashdot)_tee_hee_.(or
fools and their money are still being parted...
If I could, I'd destroy you all.
Microsoft has attributed the rise in earnings to increased server sales (where *nix-based systems are supposed to be doing well)
Maybe it's because more servers (both MS and !MS) have been sold this year so both were profitable...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
No they just used Excel. "Funny Accounting" was bought out just a few seconds ago ;)
"So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
about two minutes ago I got sent this
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
1. Profit
I'm glad they're doing so well. And I'm glad Mac OSX and Linux are doing well too.
This is probably one reason why Microsoft is increasing office space (a good hint at increased hiring if they're making room for thousands of extra workers).
When will people stop wishing for the failure of others and start wishing for the success of their choosing?
Not to be Mr. Sour Grapes, but 8% growth (while very healthy) isn't historically that wonderful for MSFT. While its certainly safe to say that MSFT is doing well, I'd say its also safe to say that the days of explosive growth (as in early to mid 90's) are behind them.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
That's surprising, considering how much money I have donated to New York State in speeding tickets
I talk about stuff.
"To put it in perspective, Microsoft's income is about the same as New York State receives in taxes" QUIET! You might give Bill ideas on how to double next years income!
2. Profit
3. Profit
4. Profit!
(I'd write more, except that that Clippy keeps popping up saying "You appear to be writing a Microsoft business history. Do you want any help?"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
But how do we know that this growth isn't just because we happen to be in a fairly prosperous time for the tech-market in general right now? These rates could take a turn for the worse in the next couple years. So this could all just be circumstantial.
What I'd like to see is a comparison of growth rates of major software companies. Even if Microsoft still comes out on top, at least the comparison would be relative to _something_.
I guess they are becoming ever more skillful at squeezing money out of contracts.
IBM, for example, makes big bucks too, but they also facilitate cash flow because most of their revenue goes to vendors, contrators, etc.
Microsoft is a money sink. Society sinks money in it, but hardly any comes back out (that's why Gates can spend so much on charity, in case you were wondering..)
Well that does not mean they have gained new customers. 2005 has seen lots of companies finally migrating from Windows NT, or upgrading from Windows 2000 to Windows 2003.
the day after MacWorld, Apple reported its best quarter ever.s .html/
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jan/12result
Is MS a blackhole or a supernova about to blow up?
They obviously saved a load of cash by getting rid of that expensive code debugging department.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
Take off every xbox, for great profit.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It should also be said, that there's no Halo next quarter.
MSFT would love to make the claim that this is largely due to server software... but its Halo II... and that ain't happening again any time soon.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Many Unix systems are being migrated to either Windows or Linux. This is why both Linux and Windows sales can rise even though they're competitors.
I once attended a technical presentation about OSS, and I recalled some interesting facts.
Even during the most difficult of economic times, Microsoft has made billions.
Even when tech companies are in a slump, and businesses fold left and right, MS continues to rake in the dough.
So where does this money come from?
"IT CAME FROM YOU!" said the presenter.
Yes, while your companies are struggling to make a penny or two, MS just leeches off of you with their Windows licenses and forced upgrades. Face it, you get little in return for every new version of Windows you buy. Win2K->WinXP was just a hideous facelift.
Yet people still pay through the nose for Windows. It's inexplicable.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
.. completely destroying the industry! I call for more draconian laws to curb the practice which is clearly destorying Microsoft and robbing its shareholders of profits!
"Microsoft has attributed the rise in earnings to... more XBox units being sold." Wow! Is this credible?
Isn't anyone going to mention how Gates relieving the CEO spot to Steve Ballmer had an effect on this?
"Microsoft's income is about the same as New York State receives in taxes - below California, and well above the other 48 states."
I stopped paying the microsoft tax last year when I bought my first Mac.
More music, fewer hits
"We have to discern the enthusiasm over 7 percent growth versus 30 to 50 percent growth we had seen 10 years ago..."
You have to keep in mind that it really will get harder and harder to maintain high growth rates. Multi-million dollar markets are not big enough for M$ now. They will only enter larger (billion dollar) markets. Furthermore, without market and sales growth, their stock price simply cannot grow at a high rate. Think "mature company" not "young, fast, growing company" from here going forward.
How to Download YouTube Videos
This isn't another episode of funny accounting is it?
It is of sorts. Microsoft has so much cash in various accounts is is commonly known in the past that not was all accounted for as to make their profits more reasonable. With a 80-90% markup in North American markets does not hurt either.
Y2K was 4-5 years ago, and alot of the sales are upgrades from NT to W2000 or W2003. 1999 was a bubble sales year and after 4-5 years write down many companies will upgrade servers. Sales for this type are Y2K cyclical and will not last.
And if you don't plow the income into R&D to fix issues of security, usability and reliability then it is like milking a cow without feeding it.
Novell had such a bubble near it's end at the top as did Digital and IBM before them. History is just repeating itself.
To put it in perspective, Microsoft's income is about the same as New York State receives in taxes - below California, and well above the other 48 states.
And in the news today, Bill Gates says:
"Come join our friendly community, we promise to tax you less then California, but in our wonderful community you get great programs to."
Microsoft has decided to cede from the union and create their own country.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Sorry, but where did you get this idea from? I don't recall Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman or any of the other Open Source people ever talk about defeating Windows...
Linux is an alternative and a good one at that. It exists despite Windows and it's getting better and better as time goes on - that's all that matters...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
...that 1.5 billion of the increase in profit is due to a 1.5 billion reduction in R&D. Wonder what long term effect halving the R&D budget will have on future MS technology?
...that apart from the occasional piece of MS-branded hardware, like mice or keyboards, none of their profits came from my hard-earned cash.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Maybe it's just because their copy-protection scheme are getting better. I know a lot of people who used to copy Windows CD's until XP, which they for some reason couldn't.
This would make their marketshare stagnant and their income rising.
December, 1998:
"I've said it before in public, and I'll stick my neck out again," says Raymond, "Microsoft will no longer be a factor in that market in 18 months."
The increase in earnings is a result of lower compensation per share- instead of offering a 2-to-1 split or dividends to their investors, Microsoft kept the cash on hand. At the same time, demand for Windows and Office products dropped.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!
No, he's probably still grinning after yesterday, when Tony Blair lent him political legitimacy by sitting down to a world economic conference with him :/
Sure, you can say profits have doubled, if last quarter was unusually bad, or you took some large charges last quarter, or if there was some non-recurring windfall this quarter. And IIRC they were losing money on xbox hardware, how can they make that up on volume? Hmmmm... { I recall talking to a TI salesman, in the glory days ( Sept 15-17, 1983 ) of the TI-99 computer. He managed to keep a straight face, admitting they lost money on each one, but would make it up on volume. }
I used to temp for MS from 1998-2000, I was a bus rider and the traffic was so bad from Redmond to Seattle that some employees would cruise the bus stops asking for a third person to qualify for the car pool lane. If you didn't take the HOV lane, it would add 45 to 90 minutes to your commute.
One time I got a ride with someone from accounting. The conversation must have been started about how they posted record profits that day and he was all giddy about it. He went on about how they withhold money back in some financial quarts in order to show off record results in another. I'm sure this has become familiar with many people over the 90s that once or twice a year MS would post record profits. The sole purpose would be to drive up the price of the stock. I laughed and asked him if it were legal, he said that not only was it legal, but very common in the industry. What he was doing wasn't any different from what other companies did during the dot com explosion.
I haven't temped there in a while, im not sure how things are in the labs or meeting rooms. Everyone benefits from a higher stock price, but im thinking this may be to keep their talent from jumping ship. Back in the mid to late 90s, a program manger or developer could be expected to work there for 7 years, then cash in all their stock options and retire at the ripe old age of 30. Its obviously not like that now because the stock price is lower and has been like that for several years. Investors really aren't that worried about the stock price, they are in it for the long term investment. But not the workers! Oh no, they want to work that 7 years and get the hell out of dodge and its the stock options that really keeps a MS employee working there. I've heard it from a few developers that if it wasn't for the stock options, they would quit their jobs in a heartbeat.
Microsoft is not dying.
Sorry, but where did you get this idea from? I don't recall Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman or any of the other Open Source people ever talk about defeating Windows...
Nor I. Virtually all of the "Topple teh micro$of7!!!!1`11``" rants are from
I always tell people "use the right tool for the job" so they shouldn't feel dirty if they maintain a Windows box (or dual boot) to play games, etc.
Trolling is a art,
I wonder how much of those record profits were due to laying off American workers to hire cheap foreign labor...
I go to the local coffeeshop and there are cute girls and middle-aged women using notebooks running Windows. 4-10 people at any given time, maybe 1-2 of which have iBooks or PowerBooks. Most of the others have notebooks from Dell. I go to the local college campus and *everyone* has a notebook PC. About 25% of these are Macs, the vast majority of the rest are Dells.
PCs and their operating systems are ubiquitous these days. They're not geek toys, they're tools for everyone. And except for the smallest handful of people, they're all running Windows or OS X. Come to think of it, I'm in the habit at peeking at what people are doing on their notebooks and I have yet to see anyone running Linux or another minority OS.
Truthfully, the average PC user is getting worried about virii and spyware. And more and more of them are running Firefox as a result. This doesn't mean they're attempting to ditch every product Microsoft makes, not by a long shot.
Nah, not them. If they feel things slipping they will just buy more markets..
They wont be declining/going away for at least another 20 years..
After that.. who knows..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Um. I'm not great at counting, but that doesn't look right.
Growth is different to magnitude or size. The one-man outfit which hired two others is 300% in size but that makes it only 200% up: the growth is 200%.
Thanks for helping me get my scout "Counting Nazi" badge!
"Novell had such a bubble near it's end at the top as did Digital and IBM before them. History is just repeating itself."
There's one big difference. In each of those cases, Microsoft was there to burst the bubble and take away the market share. This time around there is no "other Microsoft".
Don't get me wrong, there's going to be competition. OSS continues to make strides in usability (Firefox), and Apple is finally selling a cheap computer. But I think, by best estimates, Apple/OSS could only take away 20% of MS's market share on the OS level.
When Novell collapsed, it was because Microsoft was rising. Same with IBM (fortunately for them, they reshaped their business from software to services). No one is going to grind Microsoft into the dirt anytime soon.
To put this into context, the preceding sentence was "But Raymond is positive that open source, in the form of Linux, is about to take the battle deep into Fortune 500 server market."
I've got no idea if the profit figures give any information on how much Microsoft made from the "Fortune 500 server market".
Matt
... Accounting Firm to do Math!
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
Thats not a safe assumption to make. A lot of organizations have site licenses for the software, so its easy for server sales to outpace OS sales.
While there may be an increase in Linux deployments, you can't infer that from any of this information.
This morning on Bloomberg News they specifically called out Halo 2 as being a very large contributor to the suprising jump in sales, as a large number of people (myself included) bought an X-Box specifically for Halo.
The dual facts that the XBox is the first modern console I've ever bought and that I've since bought ten other games is icing on the cake for them. There are a lot of people being pulled into modern consoles who were never tempted before by them.
Linux now occupies about 80% of my computing time but I am also the first guy all my friends and relatives asks to fix their Windows PCs when something goes wrong with them.
Sure, I point them in the direction of OSS Windows apps like Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, GIMP, etc. but if they feel they are productive using Windows, then who am I to tell them otherwise?
Remember that OSS does not have huge advertising budgets and getting the word out about killer OSS apps is a case of word-of-mouth on places like /. However, only a few people here are zealots - most of us don't like the fact that when the next Windows virus hits, we all suffer through slow Internet connections and people turning up on our doorsteps with broken PCs.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
WinNT to W2003 resulted in a huge upswing in MS spending in the later half of last year for my company. I was hoping for a decent rationalisation of why were were using WinNT in some of these cases (e.g. DNS??? file/print servers???), but as usually business managers have their backs up against the wall (e.g. procrastinate on spending) and just want to pay their way out of a situation when they have no choice.
And if you have to upgrade the OS (which results in lots of application regression testing, which is labour and the most expensive cost of the whole process), you may as well replace the server which is probably 4-5 years old at this point. So the upswing in server sales for the last quarter or two I would attribute to this WinNT retirement. WinNT upgrade = license fees, + labour + h/w....ironically the catalyst is probably the least expensive component in the equation.
At least, that's how it played out at the bank I work at...
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Glad to hear it. But as an investor I would like to see their stock price tick up a bit with this news. Since their last stock split a few YEARS ago, the price has stayed in the $22-$28 range. Pretty flat performance.
My
From MS Versus:
"According to an ABC News 1/22/99 article by Michael Martinez, Microsoft's own internal auditor, a respected 30 year veteran and former partner of Deloitte and Touche, was fired in 1996 after informing management that their earnings manipulations were illegal and violations of the SEC and FASB laws. He was given the option to resign or be fired and later settled for $4 million after suing under the Federal Whistle Blowers Act."
"The single most lucrative product Microsoft sells is its own stock. Microsoft receives almost as much cash inflow from the stock market as it does by selling goods and services... Basically, Microsoft receives cash by issuing employee stock options, after which the company then receives billions of dollars in tax deductions from the IRS for doing so. Add in the warrants it sells on its own stock, and the company made over $5 billion off the stock market [for the] fiscal year end[ing] July 1999, tax-free. For comparison, its after-tax net income was only $7.8 billion. Microsoft may not be much in the programming department, but its accountants are impressive." (Landley, Rob. "Why Microsoft's Stock Options Scare Me." The Motley Fool 17 Feb 2000)
Developers: We can use your help.
Can someone translate it into football field sizes?
It could just be the US $ inflating their sales. But even if these are real figures, their sales actually haven't increased much. Most of the profit is due to cutting costs. Taking inflation and exchange rates into account, we could turn this story around and say that their sales have decreased, and they've scaled back to compensate for this and expected future decreases.
You are right, this is largely a marketing problem. Given M$ marketing budget relative to Linux/GNU this isn't going to change soon.
However, the server component does indicate that
the lock-in aspect is incredibly important. This indicates that even for supposedly "Tech-savy" users, M$ produces a product that many view as good enough.
For those who believe that M$ profits need to begin to shrink to enhance world freedom, what this means is that 1) Linux has to get relatively much better at a technical level and 2) that Linux/GNU needs to make it clear to M$ users that they are at a disadvantage from a user perspective. Linux/GNU needs to identify and target specific classes of M$ users and demonstrate just what a competitive disadvantage means. If they can't of course, this may mean that some might have to admit that at least from a business perspective M$ has a better product.
Hype and pomposity will unlikely change the situation. Only concerted action and a redoubling of effort on the part of the Linux/GNU/FOSS community will change things.
Stop hyping and and blabbering about how great Linux/GNU/FOSS is relative to M$ in upity-tones and use that energy to do things that will make the community more attractive to the average Joe (and particularly average Joe businessman), who hasn't figured out that Linux/GNU/FOSS is the better deal for himself and for society. Its time to work more constructively with other members of our Linux/GNU/FOSS community.
MSFT
To put it in perspective, Microsoft's income is about the same as New York State receives in taxes - below California, and well above the other 48 states.
A great point. I think we need to start viewing business and government along the same lines. I've heard plenty of people deride "big business" for anti-privacy, fraud, etc., and turn a blind eye to "big government" doing the same things. If you think about it, there's really very little difference.
Record profits probably means a nice high stock price. So, let's all dump our MSFT shares. A flood of MSFT selling, the price will plummet! We can sink microsoft! Together, we can SLASHDOT-EFFECT MICROSOFT'S STOCK!
I must say having looked at some of the presentations on Longhorn, it does actually look very impressive *ducks*.
c on ceptvid/default.aspx
While Linux is still trying to compete to become the desktop of choice, Microsoft don't seem to be resting on their laurels and are making impressive strides in the application space.
Linux while it may be becoming a strong contender for the desktop still appears to be years behind in terms of applications when you look at what Longhorn is doing
http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/productinfo/
Doesn't look like Microsoft is going to be going anywhere in the near future.
Downloads of Adaware and SpyBot are at an all time high.
It's the battle of the minds, and everyone's unarmed.
Quarters like this are roughly the difference between an average college and a really good college for my kids.
Both my brother and a friend of his purchased servers from Dell. Neither actually use the computer for something I would call a server, both purchased based on equipment specs. Mainly they wanted a high end workstation with raid and multiprocessor. I'm curious as to whether this would have been classified as server sales by MS and /or the equipment manufacturer.
...
...considering this is what they regard as the quickest journey:
1. go to http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx
2. start address: country : Norway / city : haugesund
3. destination address: country : Norway / city : trondheim
4. Route type: Quickest
5. press get directions
Basically, 'making it up on volume' is easy. As you buy more and more parts from a supplier, you gain the bargaining power to make them charge less for the parts. So while you initially make a loss, the cost of the item goes down over time, and you simply dont pass this on to the consumer in its full amount. As your volume increases, the cost goes down.
Where can I get this Clippy browser plugin?
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
If I sell a trillion dollar hammer, I only need 1 customer to beat Craftsman in yearly income. Nor does it mean I have a more popular product, or more customers, or a better product. It just means I sold an expensive hammer.
Shouldn't confuse this with units sold. Or how their marketshare is doing.
As the poster suggested, "server sales" are to thank. And guess what? The server software is not at all cheap.
In DEC's case, the influx of workstation-class machinery caused a weakening of the mini market. This weakening killed off all but the strongest mini maker (DEC). Customers fleeing from failing makers split themselves between DEC and the new workstation vendors, thus causing a boost in DEC's sales right before the crash of the whole mini market -- DEC peaked amongst the carnage of their market, then crashed spectacularly.
Sun's case was a repeat of the behavior. Sun's market had migrated from workstations to servers from the late 80s through the mid 90s. By the mid 90s, however, we were already seeing a market shift towards PCs acting as servers. As the server vendors' market weakened (still prior to the Internet boom) we saw diminishing workstation/server sales for many companies in that sector (e.g. HP, SGI). Meanwhile Sun's sales skyrocketed, again attributable to a split in the market where some of the people leaving failing vendors went to Sun.
Sun would have had a crash in the 1999 timeframe if it weren't for the internet boom, which dramatically increased demand for large servers. When the boom ended, however, so did Sun's fortunes -- very fast. You can see in Dell's sales where the market went.
Microsoft has been benefitting from the failing of the server vendors, same as Sun. (Though, really, the biggest winner in this is Dell.) If this were a normal hardware-only migration Microsoft would rapidly capture upwards of 80% of he market and be dominant until the next hardware shift. But it's not normal because this is the first transition where the software is decoupled from the hardware.
Microsoft should have won by default, with customers shifting from server-class systems to PCs as customers went with the default option of Windows servers. And, in fact, Microsoft did extremely well for the first several years of the transition when there really wasn't much competition in the PC space.
Linux has thrown a huge wrench in the works. It's maturing very nicely and offers the huge win over Windows in that it's both cheaper for licenses and especially for migration.
If there's any one thing we can count on in this industry it's that the cheapest thing that gets the job done wins (which I've been saying so long now I call it Jim's Law). Until Linux came along the cheapest thing was Windows servers. Now it's not. The market impact of that is going to be phenomenal.
In a typical market transition you can expect more or less equal boosting of the various competitors in the market as people flee dying companies. But in a typical market transition there is not much price difference between the competitors -- usually within 10%, as everyone attempts to maximize the market opportunity.
Linux turns that on its head by offering a scale of prices starting at zero (no support) through prices that are more or less competitive with Microsoft's offerings (full support). That gives Linux a significant market advantage.
I expect we'll see a major market move towards mid-priced systems (some support, not "enterprise class" support, call it the $500 price point). Microsoft is trying hard to push for higher prices in that market just as Linux is depressing them.
If things continue the way they are going I would expect Microsoft to peak in the next one to three years at perhaps 65% of the market (by units) as the migration from server-class systems to PCs-as-servers completes, and then fall over the following five years to about 30% of the market as people migrate to more cost-effective Linux solutions.
But Microsoft won't take this laying down, they'll start reducing prices to match those of the midrange Linux products (more on that in a minute), to whatever degree they can afford. As such I think we're going to see the products come very close to price parity and we'll see Windows stabilize at 40-45% market share with
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
MS was losing hundreds of millions on their game box for many years, but made a modest profit this year due to some hit games. MS has the resource to weather years of slow product ramp-up.
My cousin works for MS in their consulting dept, apparently they have slashed benifits this past year like crazy. How can they be posting massive earnings and screwing over their workers?
... To put it in perspective, Microsoft's income is about the same as New York State receives in taxes
Come on! Let's use some standard measures here.
How many football fields high would that be if the money was stacked?
Ans: ~1670 football fields high of dollar bills
How many times would it circle the earth if it was laid end-to-end?
Ans: ~860 times
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
It's odd to compare Microsoft's revenue to tax revenue... but consider the following:
Everyone who paid Microsoft a dime did so voluntarily, while people who paid the state of New York did so to stay out of jail.
Amazing magic tricks
Win2k and Office2k function quite well for the Fortune 100 company I'm at. What "forced upgrades" are you talking about?
Microsoft is majorly profiting because I'd say because of the explosion of broadband. With more people accessing the internet (running XP, no doubt) the servers increase. That's a profit.m /fact s/default.mspx)
As more and more people get online, more servers will be required, and with anti-Linux propaganda at the ready, Microsoft can take advantage of small business sans IT.
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversyste
That being said, I'm sure Linux groups (Red Hat, etc.) have sold more servers also.
As previously mentioned, more and more computers are being sold. The vast majority are dell-whorish mass-produced Windows XP computers.
Case in point, I'm at my school library using brand new IBMs running Windows XP. As long as schools, libraries, individual users, etc, continue to buy desktops, Microsofts profits will continue to rise.
On a side note, the computer next to me just crashed.
The sheep herd market doesn't decide what are the best technical solutions.
It decides what was marketed the best.
Stupid sheep.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
And to really put things in perspective, I remember an article on Wal-Mart for a year or two back that said, "This year, Wal-Mart plans to grow by the equivalent of one Microsoft."
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
IS Windows New Technology Tecchology on any of the DNS root servers?
Isn't Novell again rising with SuSE?
*DrugCheese rants*
considering how easy it is to download windows from p2p, i wonder what percentage of their sales are coming from companies?
In Soviet Russia, Micro$oft profits YOU!
or
In Korea, only old people don't pirate Microsoft software.
No doubt their earnings are high, but neccessarily as high as reported and surely not for the published reasons.
Other's in the recent past have had some pretty fantastic earnings figures as well.
When you have the internal and external resources, access to the fiscal instruments and influence with regulatory institutions that Microsoft ha[s,ve] true disclosure is largely at the corporations own discression.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain...
They must have been using Excel to do the calculations! :-)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
What would happen if *nix systems were used for businesses day to day work and held lots of important data from everyday users and their downfall would cause public outcry, would *unix turn out to be as holy as MS? Would hackers be able to find loads of holes? hummm...
You know, signs like these can also mean the beginning of the end in the lifecycle of a company. Cash cow anyone ? And like the story goes, high market share is not a guarantee in itself.
I'm not suggesting M$ is on this way though.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I'm not sure if Gates really stated that, but if he did, he was defeated long before Linux came along. There have always been multiple OS's around and there always will be, with or without Linux.
being a monopoly that controls over 90% of the worlds computers, the chance of it being "on the decline" in any meaningful (i.e.: financial) sense is zero. the "amusing" thing about the profit report (i.e.: microsoft raking in the dough from it's monopoly despite the rest of the economy still going down the toilet) is to contrast it with the hyping of their new anti-piracy program:
David Lazar, a director of the Windows Genuine Advantage program, says piracy has cost Microsoft "billions of dollars over the past ten years."
of course, the two are not contradictory -- i'm sure piracy has impact microsoft to some degree -- but the contrast suggests that the harm caused by having thousands of unpatchable (since the owners are not going to be stupid enough to sign up for a visit from the spa) and exploited systems on the internet outweighs the impact on their profit margin.
I have not looked at the 10Q yet. But right after I worked there, Microsoft started very agressive cost-cutting. Benefits, etc. Even my whole department was eventually moved to India. I seriously doubt that this is primarily due to increased sales (MS usually only has notably large increases with the release of products) but rather to these cost cutting measures.
Otherwise, it would seem like an artifact of accounting (revenue posted one quarter but not earned until this quarter, etc).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
For a company that most Slashdotters would say is on the decline, Microsoft sure has weird financial results!
Yeah. People were laughing at Alan Greenspan for a number of few years before that bubble burst too. I guess some of us silly Slashdotters just don't "get" the new Microsoft economy. It's ok though, you just go ahead now and keep putting your money there. After all, what could be wrong with Microsoft's accounting practices?
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
Some good news... I just handed out three copies of KNOPPIX_V3.7-2004-12-08 today to co-workers and its still only 8:03 in the morning.
One of them just had his hard drive (or something) fail to boot (could not find OS). It's not clear yet what whether the drive is any good, but if is just corrupted OS files ==> Knoppix to the rescue!
Another was complaining that Linux doesn't like his older laptop with one of the first GeForce-2Go chipsets ==> GamesKnoppix-3.7-0.1-EN will prompt you about loading load the proprietary nVidia drivers on boot. Hey, it might work! You just have to remember when you're trying to type "yes" at the prompt that although it is the "English" version it still thinks you've got a German keyboard at boot so the Y and the Z buttons are swapped.
Finally, there's a fellow who has been thinking about trying GNU/Linux on his old Windoze hardware. So I burnt another copy of Knoppix and handed it to him.
Ahh... I've got a warm fuzzy feeling.
Now if I could just get back that copy of _Knoppix_Hacks_ that I lent to my neighbor so I could lend it out to someone else.
Religion is poison to rationality, and we lose sight of that at our own peril. -- Lurker2288
Not to mention that Novell wasn't also into mice, keyboards, video consoles, a jillion software titles, business accounting systems, and so many other diversified areas. Gates is not dumb.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This is true to a limited extent. Why was MS able to unseat these titans (IBM and Novell as you've mentioned) from their thrones? MS created an environment in which these old companies could not compete (i.e. MS was much less expensive). So MS is used to providing the lowest price point for software that is "good enough" and in some ways a bit better (usability [I'm talking corp. accounts here since that's where the real money is]) than their competitors.
Now Linux has come along and done much the same thing that MS did in the 90's. Software that is "good enough" (from a usability perspective) and in some ways better than Windows (reliability, transparency, etc.) and priced anywhere from free to "cheaper than what MS is charging for their software." Ballmer himself said that MS is used to competing on price and they can't do that with Linux. Now MS has to rely on studies describing TCO, RIO and all those other acronyms that corporate America loves to talk about to attempt to justify their higher prices (does this sound familiar?).
MS is going to have a very hard time in the coming years. Linux has already forced them to do a number of things they weren't eager to do such as "releasing" source code, creating a crippled version of XP, restarting IE development, etc. To say that no one is there waiting to eat their lunch denies the MS' own reactions to this new competition.
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
NY State has budget of over $100 Billion. Most of the money for the budge comes from tax revenue, and even if you take into account NY's deficit of less than $20 Billion, you're still left with about $80 Billion of tax revenue.
Surely,
MS just reported a LOSS of kazilion billion due to lost sales due to "pirated copies" of Windows. They even had to stop updating illegal versions!
Surely they are close to bankrupt now.
Specifically, as long as no new features are used, every version of every Office program should be able to exchange every Office document. There shouldn't be any of this, Office 95 can't read Office 97 files, and Office 97 can't read Office 2k files, etc.
Of course the new version will want to come out with new features. But the reader architecture should have been smart enough to recognize that it can't handle something, realize it's a new feature, and prompt the user for some sort of action. This isn't rocket science.
Sometimes it's even possible that there just may be a better storage architecture, and it's time to break backward compatiblity. That happens. But it shouldn't happen every single release. The fact that the settings can be tweaked to save in old formats by default, combined with the fact that there are companies happily running that way, suggest to me (and others) that MS uses file format changes to "urge" upgrades.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Halo 2 is the reason why their "Home Entertainment" division is in the black but they won't be that way later this year. And in the end it is a small portion of their revenue stream. There bread and butter is still Office and OEM Windows deals.
Microsoft ran some cut costs (including cutting R&D funding which IMHO is dangerous for a technology company) and had a confluence of good timing (servers from the pre-bubble era need replacing about now) leads to this. The real question I have in my mind is how they will be at the end of the year. I'm not seaying they will be bankrupt but I suspect the picture for MS Q4 2005 isn't as rosey.
Okay, the REAL reason why Microsoft has posted such gains is that it is no longer supporting the NT4 operating system. Enterprises that want to have continued support have been forced to purchase Windows 2003 Server upgrades to maintain support.
Microsoft touts this as "high demand" for their server platform, when in reality, its a strong-arm move to keep their customers locked in to their platform, support and licensing model.
Most enterprises likely had little choice but to upgrade. It was the easier choice in my company, despite my loathing of the Microsoft business model (NOTE: I said *easier* choice, not the *right* choice). It would be far more difficult to migrate to a non-Microsoft platform when there are well known dependencies on MS technology.
Unfortunatly, the closest thing related to an IT architecture strategy around my company looks remarkably like the Microsoft technology roadmap.
I need a new job...
"There *IS* no patch for stupidity" -www.sqlsecurity.com
Accounting should be an Olympic sport, because they manage to pull off some impressive moves, sometime.
Microsoft would totally win the Gold, with this one.
MS better up their R&D budget fast. Imagine if the company was known for bug-ridden, non-innovative software!
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
Please could you back up that statement. I have seen no evidence either way as to how significant a player Microsoft is in the "Fortune 500 server market". You say "regardless of the context". My point was that you can't just disregard the context. ESR was talking about a very specific market segment and Microsoft's profit figures do not (as far as I've looked) demonstrate that they are a big player in this market. Matt
My company upgraded my box yesterday, from win ME to win 2k pro. On an old PIII.
Ohh and autocad 2005LT is buggy, you need to download autodesk's sp1 if you want a stable autocad.
Sounds like a joke huh?
Wow! An online website with a forum full of Anti-Microsoft Trolls trying to explain how microsoft is failing in the market even though they are still doing well even in 2005 (years after the dot bomb). What a suprise!
If everyone on this list got a job and got out of their parents house, then there would be nothing else to talk about.
Linux is better because it's not Microsoft isn't going to work anymore kids. Get on with your lives, get away from the computer. Go get a girlfriend and a job and maybe you might be able to save your life.
I read somewhere that in 1999 ms had like $8.7 billion or so in profits, but if you properly accounted the options ms gave to employees they would have resulted in a loss of $11 billion . The widespread use of stock options to compensate employees has caused corporate earnings to be grossly overstated, since the options reduce the amount of wages charged against profits.
so i bought an xbox with no games for no reason then?
I feel you are being overly optimistic in your forecasting of the rise of OSS to market dominance. Suppose you are at least right that Linux's emergence as an alternative in the market has forced Microsoft to make some changes under the hood. So what? In the grand scheme of things how do they lead to the conclusion "MS is going to have a very difficult time in coming years?" To an uninitiated such as myself none of these changes seem significant. Wake me up when microsoft posts an unusually bad year and oss posts a good one.
I'd be more inclined to agree with something reasonable...
'It seems likely Microsoft will be giving up some market share to Open source software in coming years.' Being dramatic lends nothing to this conclusion.
0. Steal original DOS and make a mint.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Not sure where you're coming from, but around here if taxes are paying for your health care, they are almost certainly not your taxes.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Don't multiple windows servers just give you that many *more* security holes? :)
hawk
Profit for shareholders of a growth company only means that people bought a stock which later others are willing to pay more for. The billions go into Microsoft's coffers more from stock purchases than pure profit (at least historically). For all the details on how they were unprofitable during the 80s and 90s read this. If you can read all of the facts and quotes from people who were involved and still think they were profitable by product sales alone then you're choosing to be blind.
Developers: We can use your help.
What killed DEC wasn't the changing market, but recto-cranial inversion in the upper layers of management.
Listen to someone from there describe the demise and changes (Cutler's regime seems to be a common cutoff point).
They out-appled apple.
DEC was even more efficient than VW (though the same basic story) at cutting off limbs. After the two previous attempts to kill off the bug failed as people didn't buy the new models, they insured that the third *would* be their new main model by refusing to produce their most popular product.
hawk
Looks like all those pirated versions of windows are really cutting into the profits.
Can someone who works with MS in the enterprise comment on licensing agreements?
Rumors on slashdot claim that MS is raising the cost of MS Office if corporate buyers do not also buy or promise to switch from Unix to Windows.
Like, oh we would like to run Oracle on Linux but our licensing agreement with MS makes us use SQL-Server.
Is this true or just abunch of rumors? This is slashdot after all.
Last, sales of IT are UP! Look at the nasdaq? Businesses who did not upgrade since 1999 are doing some maintance on their systems. Windows and Unix should be included on this.
http://saveie6.com/
I can easily see Microsoft lapsing into the same kind of "saturated market mentality" that afflicts other industries. Instead of focusing on innovation and providing real value, they'll focus on ways to use the same medium to extract more cash- increased licensing fees, unbundling of certain components, software-as-a-service, annual subscriptions, and countless other possibilities that will require payment over and above the base cost.
Everyone who paid Microsoft a dime did so voluntarily [...]
I've got a stack of unused Win CDs here that calls you a liar. No, the difference is that some of the money I spend in taxes has provided me with benefits (better roads, police services, etc., etc.), while none of the money I've been forced to send to Redmond since the early nineties (the last time I actually used an MS OS) has done me any damn good at all.
Now, no one is saying that MS is going anywhere tomorrow, next year, or even ten years. It is crazy to think otherwise. It took MS ten years to effectively kick IBM out of the OS / Office suite market. Add to the equation that MS is sitting on billions in cash (that isn't going to evaporate overnight). Shoot, all the companies MS beat in the great grandparent of this post (IBM and Novell) are still very much in business. However, MS losing any substantial amount of market share to anyone is a "big deal" in that it is an inflection point away from the MS monoculture we see today. Large change happens slowly but I think we're at the very beginning of one that is worth taking note of.
One other thing to consider... Almost all of MS' profits come from the sale of Windows and Office. Because of this they are almost unassailable in other markets and any company competing against MS is competing against their money generating cash cows, Office and Windows. If those two bulwarks are challenged in a substantial way then you are turning the screws on the other unprofitable areas of MS (of which there are many).
Look at the XBOX for instance... It has lots hundreds of millions of dollars and MS is unfazed by this. MS is able to write this off as the cost of getting into the market due to the horde of cash they have accumulated. What other company would be able to do this? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
I wasn't *trying* to be dramatic. Sorry if I left you with that impression. I'm willing to go 50/50 with you and say it was 50% me being more dramatic than I intended and 50% the internet and your expectation (and mine for that matter) of a typical
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Netcraft confirms it.
-pyrrho
That's great to hear! I've been a long time uber-fan of SuSE and it's the only linux product I use for myself and clients.
In 98 when I tried RedHat for the first time even then I could see that with each new distro SuSE was taking strides while RedHat only crept along.
And now Novell owns Evolution to give MS Exchange Server and Outlook that final One-Two punch.
I may be blinded by my faith in them, but I have a ton of faith that Novell/SuSE will be the company in the news credited for being Microsofts demise.
*DrugCheese rants*
I havent spent that much on Microsoft. When I built my computer I bough t a copy of XP Home and haven't given them another dime.
What'd you pay for XP Home, $100? That copy cost about $15 to make.
I know MS makes tons from corporations.
Surprise! Corporations at least get bulk discounts. Unless you buy directly from another big corporation, MS actually makes a bigger percentage of profit from people like you.
Microsoft's $10b is a lot, but it's nowhere near New York.
antipaucity
I assume they pull money out of Bills couch, and can make the nubmers say anything they want.
Hmm..going by your logic, if companies replace their servers every 4-5 years, it is going to be a long time before Linux sees any server market share.
For some companies where managers need to feel a familiarity between their desk top and what a server looks like... and perhaps have low skilled server manager - yes. These markets will be initially hard to crack. Some of these shops still might even still be running Netware.
But do remember, Linux is in almost every Netgear, SMC, LinkSys cable modems, routers and even cell phones. For web servers, Netcraft reports more sites run on Linux/BSD/xNIX than Windows.
China bought a million seats of Linux from Sun not to long ago. And since most distros are free -- no one really knows how many there out there but I would bet the farm that it is alot more than Microsoft will admit to or have you believe.
Many shops use VMWare to run Windows servers to increase reliability by removing driver depenancies. VMWare also facilitates quick backup and recovery as well as OS instance sharing of hardware. VMWare server version is modified Linux. Modified versions of xNIX can be found in Bluecoats, file share devices
This you can be sure of, China with relatively inexpensive labour could pile 1,000,000 programmers towards Linux and like TVs, computers, camera, auto parts, toys and hundereds of other things the next software package for ERP, HRS or servers might also come from the orient.
And China isn't going to spend $1000 per PC on Microsoft for 5 billion people. More like 50 cents for a Linux distro with a Chinese version of Open Office that runs on a $125 PC. Comes with source for quick bug fixes and isn't back doored.
The chinese are learning Linux now. Give then a year, maybe two and the shrink wrapped ERP server might be at your door to replace that Microsoft server.
Intel is already feeling the pinch as why spend $300 for a P4 when I can get the whole system, memory, hard drive, case CD-RW for $300.
Our businesses feel the pinch as users routinely load spyware and viruses daily costing billions in unproductive time for our companies. And yes, users infect more machines than worms do. A Linux appliances will come in a way the user can't do this and save adopers many millions.
So no, I think the Linux revolution is huge and only begun. And it is building momentum by the day. And I do predict the day Micosoft adopts Linux as theor OS or they will be crushed.
"Hurd will be out in a year..."
Somehow I don't think that leaders of the open source movement are the paragon of prescience :-)
English is easier said than done.
I signed up for hotmail LONG before MS bought it. Besides, they aren't making any money off of me.
"Microsoft has attributed the rise in earnings to increased server sales (where *nix-based systems are supposed to be doing well) and more XBox units being sold. For a company that most Slashdotters would say is on the decline, Microsoft sure has weird financial results!"
Yeah - and Linux will do $35 billion over the next few years.
That's $35 billion Microsoft will NOT get...
The predictions stand that Linux will first take out proprietary UNIX systems on the server side, then roll back Microsoft on the server side, then take the desktop.
Have a nice day, moron.
Is that all you got, huh? Are you nuts? Come at me!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
they were full of shit too.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Do you want your daughter to be a hooker just because they make a lot of money? Enron executives also made a lot of money and look where it got them...
Your Average Joe
It's been a long time since MS was an IT company and for the last few years it's even been leaving the marketing sector in favor of international lobbying. I suppose this is just a watershed moment.
MSIE was its chance to get a death grip on the WWW, but MSIE won't last without the desktop monopoly. The desktop monopoly has been eroding quietly for some time, especially in Europe, China, S America and Africa. Now the sound of the erosion is not so quiet as the world discovers that Linux and other F/OSS is easy to install and use.
Yes, MS still sells MS-Windows like no other piece of software has ever sold. However, the mainstay of the desktop monopoly has been control of the OEMs, which supply over 90% of the sales of MS-Windows and about 70% of MS-Office sales. Without those two, there is no revenue to speak of. Get the OEMs and the whole dot-com bubble called Microsoft goes away overnight.
Cutting off R&D is cutting off future revenue. MS is now demonstrating how dire its situation is. It's become redundant as its defective products are replaced around the world with competing ones that actually get the job done for a change.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
There are only a few alternatives to Microsoft, which has a 90% market share. There are 50 states to choose from, the largest of which has only 10% of the market for residents. So it looks like state taxpayers have more choice than those who pay the "Microsoft tax.".
Of course, maybe you can't move because your job is in New York. Well, your employer voluntarily made the decision to locate in New York, and you're always free to get another job.
(Note: this is meant as a parody of the "using Microsoft is voluntary" argument, not necessarily an endorsement of New York's taxes.)
Nice try, Bill.