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Computer Demand Boosts MS Profits
elzurawka wrote to mention a BBC article discussing Microsoft's boost in profits as a result of an upswing in PC demand. From the article: "The company announced record revenue of $39.79bn for the fiscal year ending on 30 June, an 8% increase over the $36.84 billion reported last year. The main drivers of sales for Microsoft's Windows, Office and Server software products - PC makers and Asian component manufacturers - have reported healthy demand for PCs."
Really?!?! WTF!
..or Boo, depending on your personal preference.
The real story is going to be when teledildonics demand boosts MS profits.
Starsucks
They let the drivers of sales run in ring 0 which may perform better but exposes to kernel to crashes if the drivers are not thoroughly debugged.
In other news, the oil industry attributed increases in gas sales to an increase in automobile sales.
!hoD
Me:Yeahhh, i bought a pc!!! Salesman: Yes, and it comes with a pre-installed windows! Me: Ouch!
Microsoft stock falls 2.5% due to its "lackluster revenue outlooks" http://today.reuters.com/investing/MarketReportArt icle.aspx?type=usMktRpt
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
I suppose that the fact that I help as many people possible to not "buy" MS products has no effect on their sales. I guess I'm not trying hard enough.
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
their stock price is way down though: http://www.google.com/search?oi=stock&q=stocks:MSF T&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmsft%26hl%3Den%26hs%3DbnK%26l r%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-U S:official
8 percent is nice and all, but when Apple's just announced a 75% increase in revenue does it even rate a mention?
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Congrats Microsoft!
They should be rewarded for their breakthrough innovations and competitive pricing!
Oh wait a minute... replace "breakthrough innovations and competitive pricing" with "Monopoly"
When you are talking that many billions, what is a few more or less.
Obviously, I'd take a percentage point of that cash anyday and retire.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
$39b for MS, as comprared to only $19b in gross collections for the NC Dept of Revenue for 2003-2004. I hope my state does not end up on the MS radar, it could get outsourced.
I think that a major part of this is that for the past few months manufacturers have been severely discounting their machines, Dell in particular. Several people on FatWallet.com own several machines just because they received such good deals. If Dell were to take off the MS tax, however, the situation would change significantly.
dude, I know. And even with the divisions that lose cash (all the other ones) they are amazingly liquid. Scarily so, actually.
It's really scary.
un burrito me trampeó.
See my Home Theater
Other OS might have a better chance of competing on a more level playing field. The one thing that I really wished would have happened with the DOJ case a few years ago was that MS Windows would no longer get preinstalled on new pcs. Buy the pc, chose the os and then install it. Pipe Dream. Anyone up for another antitrust antimonopoly try with real results seek unbundling Windows from being preinstalled on new pcs, instead of a (relatively for MS) small $$$ settlement.
I'd like to say "Hasta la Vista" to the MS Windows Monopoly!
Microsoft has already won. Now they make profits whenever any large computer manufacturer sells a computer. They could shut down now and pay their employees for the next few years off the profits from new computers alone.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/technology/17spy .html
There is no doubt what those new machines come pre-installed with.
10
20 Print "Balls To That"
Who needs hospitals and edumacation anyway.
Right, that's why the revenue went up.
MSFT has had a flat chart for quite a while.
5 year chart.
I hate these bastards, but they are starting to look like a "buy".
So, when you're on almost all of the PCs, and there's more PCs bought, you actually make more money?
/.
When in doubt, report the obvious! Then, at least it's good ol' cynicism feed for
Luke
----
Do you like ketchup? I just found the most hilarious stand-up monologue all about ketchup. Go read it!
Something else that might boost MS profits. Free advertisement as three MS-related stories were posted to slashdot within 4 hours.
Good to know we're on the right track.
We just purchased 40 computers preloaded with XP home (apparently we couldn't get them without it), and then had to purchase 40 licenses (150 a pop) for XP Pro.
Good work Microsoft, I feel so happy about this, and that my potential is your passion!
Thank you, thank you so much.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Our revenue growth rate was 10% in fiscal 2001, 12% in fiscal 2002, and 13% in fiscal 2003
Quite a drop back from +10%, but it's still growth, though. Like the constant pull of gravity against a skyward bullet, it decelerates to zero before heading back.
Revenue growth is on its way right down. That is why the stock is down and has been falling for the past five years.
That is also why you see people fleeing to Google.
That is also why you won't be seeing very many, competent, people wanting to go work for MS. No propsect of stock growth, no reason to work at the company.
It will be fun when the revenue growth turns negative. Given the 11 billion or so shares issued, look at how little that 50 billion in cash was actually worth just to keep the stock proped up over this last year.
It is sell,sell,sell time for MS execs with stock still to unload - look at the insider sales reports to see just how much faith the current exec team has in MS's future growth.
Wrapping your mind around how many shares have been issued over the years by MS will help you wrap your mind around just how little cash they are making per share compared to other investments. And why people keep expecting them to hand out billions in cash to buy their way into new markets as the OS and office suite markets come under assault from open source.
I can say I avoided adding to Microsoft's coffers... I build my own PC's. Other than this (refurbished) laptop that I'm on, which had Windows pre-installed on it.
Brought to mind this link (which I originally saw on the front page of Joel on Software):
http://blogs.apress.com/archives/000449.php?author =gary_cornell/
They're still making a lot of sales, but the BAS has made it clear that they should be getting a LOT more money!
If the increase is 8% of previous sales, think of what it would be if they were getting paid for 100% of new installs instead of just 2%!
I've been reading the BSA web site. They told me all about it.
Software users are all evil. The BSA told me so.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
I am then crushed by an article about MS doing really well.
I sincerely hope that MS is in fact loosing it's dominance. Not because I hate Microsoft, but because the continued dominance of MS means yet more time we'll spend without significant innovation through competition.
Why did the PC sales go up?
Many people I know buy a new computer because of all the spyware and adware on their old one. (No, don't hit reply, yes they should be installing Linux on their old boxes instead.) I wonder what will happen to Microsoft's profits if they were ever to win the battle against malware?
As an aside, I have never had trouble keeping my Windows XP box malware clean (I've been running XP since it came out). I run a spyware/anti-virus check every so often that never picks anything up except false positives. The secret to it is keeping your machine updated, not clicking OK to dodgy messages from websites, and not clicking on attachments.
Parent shouldn't be modded offtopic! In that case, redundant would do. So I'd vote for insightful to compensate for the bad karma.
M$ is one of the big companies that hasn't done major layoffs in the States. In fact, they were hiring when very few others were. You can't really accuse them of outsourcing. Sure, there's tons of reasons to hate 'em, but this one ain't it.
The Raven
If all cars makers were forced to install an Alpine car radio, wouldn't Alpine be a monopoly too!
Message from the "well duh!" department.
Uhh.. Apple Revenue rose 75% to $3.52 billion from $2.01 billion, while MS rose 8% to $39.79 billion. That 8% increase alone is more that Apple's total Revenue, its all relative.
One thing I'm sure we can agree on though: if they keep increasing at this rate it won't be long until they both have infinite income!
Starsucks
Synchronize your calendar and mobile phone via text messaging.
The MAIN drivers are the major computer OEMs refusing to offer CONSUMERS an alternative to Microsoft.
I suggest boycotting these companies until they offer CONSUMERS a choice.
Besides special deals with schools, does anyone out there buy Windows in the cardboard box in the Software Isle? No?
Then I think it's a reasonably good chance that this is one of those "special" moments. Let's all share it! Everyone gather 'round! Ready?!? Ok, let's say it all at once... 1... 2... 3...
No shit!
I8-D
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
More than 90% of computers are sold with Microsoft tax. The interesting thing is that i was thinking that microsoft was going to low its prices (a lot) to compete in third word countries, but as everyone can see, this is not required.
Wondering why i am doing so strange posts? I am trying to get a "+5,Flamebait" or "-1,Insightful" rating.
In the article, Microsoft's CFO says they will "benefit greatly in the next financial year from a new Xbox video game console..."
How is that possible as console makers typically lose money on each console early on? On top of less sales of the original Xbox as they move closer to launch of the new one...
And does anyone really think the new Xbox will be as successful as they seem to think?
Gimme 8% of 95% rather than 75% of 1 percent.
... but still 1% of the market. )
(90% of the astroturfers, maybe
Even linux is bigger than Apple.
They could so give me like 2 million and not even notice. What would it hurt?
Do you think that somewhere in Redmond there is a room where Bill, Steve, et al go and have money fights with $1,000.00 dollar bills like Mr. Burns and Smithers used to?
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Does the US government even make $39 Billion a year??? That's just too much money for one company to be making no matter whether you like their products or not...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
80% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
Maybe if everyone didn't chuck their computer everytime it got spyware on it, the demand wouldn't be so high!
// Oops wrong site
/ Just sayin'
I hear it was 94%...
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Fly population up because of the increased availability of feces.
1) Build vunerable OS+apps
2) Sell PC (MS makes money of Windows being pre-installed) PROFIT!
3) Get machine infected with spyware+adware
4) Piss customer off to the point of buying a new one
5) Sell NEW PC to fix problem-PROFIT AGIAN!
Return to step 3, repeat...become freaking rich.
See...we missed the boat...MS has it down, and the average user doesn't even blame MS for having to buy their new PC.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
We need a law that prevents any operating system from coming preinstalled on a new computer. Then Joe Sixpack will be forced to stand in Walmart and pick out a new OS for his $300 emachines computer that he bought solely for the purpose of obtaining free porn and visiting the WWE website.
This will force him to choose an operating system based on price and features instead of getting whatever OS forced its way down the throat of the OEM. He'll pick up the box, look at the pictures, look at the price. When you know nothing about computers and are trying to be as cheap as possible, a bargain $8.95 KDE desktop looks pretty slick compared to XP w/SP2 for $198.00. (holy fuck I didn't know walmart was so expensive!)
I get too tired of people asking me how to make their computers faster. So:
1. people dont get an answer
2. people throw away their PC's
3. I get their "broken" PC's
4. Install Linux on them
5. Profit!
--MaxPowerDJ
In the tech market, P/E is not an entirely appropriate measure. What you're really hoping for is future earnings, and tech requires a high start-up cost but returns recurring profits. (Which is why companies so jealously guard their IP, to bring up another Slashdot flamewar.)
The trick to getting rich on the Street is to see technologies that have a high P/E (or, more often, negative or infinite P/E because they have no earnings or losses) but will "win" eventually. A nose for good technology and a strong stomach for loss are required.
That said, it doesn't apply to Microsoft, whose earnings can be roughly tracked; you know that they're never to expand by a factor of 1,000 again. That's why their P/E is a comparatively reasonable 25, and their numbers go more like a blue-chip than real high-tech.
It also doesn't apply to stocks that have already been bid up by speculators who don't really know the value of what they're buying, which was pretty much all of them during the dot-com boom.
There's a hell of a lot more going on than this (like when you buy a share of MSFT you're also buying $3.48 in cash). I'll cease to bore you with any more details; usually this is as far as I go and beyond that I just play my instincts. Additional numbers can make more fine-grained analysis but they tend to get into the "damned lies and statistics" category.
So for myself I count those rough numbers, my instinct for a products that don't suck, and the rising tide that lifts all ships. I've done pretty well, but never confuse genius for a bull market.
One last thing: there is a difference between earnings and dividends. Dividends end up in your pocket; earnings are invested in the company. But it's your money either way, so you don't lose much by not getting dividends. When a dividend is issued, the share price usually goes down to compensate. If you want your money in cash, you just sell your stock and get your cash from the next guy. But it's not a problem that tech companies don't issue dividends; you can think of it as automatically reinvesting your dividends in R&D for new products.
Perhaps if Microsoft-hating script kiddies didn't push so many ugly browser-helper objects and other malware then innocent, completely non-technical users such as most grannies, lawyers, doctors, artists, poets, etc. wouldn't throw their hands up and just buy another machine?
Of course there is always the C drive fun of the original recorvery cd process.
Thank you Mr. Bill for Visual Studio
Since I've learned how to max out my browser settings I haven't had a care in the world. Life is guuuuuuud.
Cogito Ergo Sum
(note that all of Apple's recent growth has been in consumer electronics, not computers, before jerking knee).
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Profits on MS Office increased by 7%, but that is because R&D expenses are down. This means MS Office isn't going to get substantially improved--which we already pretty much knew.
If MS Office is standing still, then it's going to be a lot easier for OpenOffice to catch up with it. Indeed, very soon, OpenOffice will release version 2.0, a major upgrade that has even better compatibility with MS Office.
All this suggests that in the medium term, MS Office revenues could be in for a hard time.
Note: all data is from http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY05/earn_r el_q4_05.mspx.
Did you bother to look at the numbers? If the 75% is such a big deal, and the 8% not so hot, doesn't that make the Mac platform at it's meager 2.5% or so of the computer market even worth typing about, let alone rate a mention?
I'd like to say "Hasta la Vista" to the MS Windows Monopoly!
Introducing Windows Vista
"It's about meeting and exceeding expectations, not just posting a profit."
Close, but not quite. It's about the investors next best alternative. If MSFT makes less money than Company B, then I buy Company B, all other things being the same.
Your statement seems to imply that expectations drive everything. And they do -- but that's only because investors are constantly comparing their current investments with the next best alternative.
You are dead on about one thing: Wall Street IS a cruel mistress.
MS's growth rate can only go down from here. They had a good run, but the market has largely matured. Look around, a lot of businesses are quite happy with Windows 2000 (server and clients) and Office 2000. Those bits of code are 5 years old!
Apparently, all people wanted was an operating system that didn't crash if you looked at it funny and some productivity apps to match.
If I had the guts I would short the stock...
Thank you, Cap't Obvious. None of us would have ever guessed.
Is that before or after they cooked the books for Wall Street? For example, did they book the free software they gave to IBM as 'sales'? Manipulating the books is more the norm than the exception which is why I only invest in stock that pays dividends, since to do so you have to have real cash on hand.
Which also is why President Jimmy Carter wanted to lift the dividend tax. He thought it might reduce the flim-flam with the corporate books.
We'll check their cash position in a year or so and see if they are actually making or losing money.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Redundant i could maybe understand, although there was no similar comment when I typed it. But troll?! Why? How?
..nearly has a seizure when he discovers that the commercial development licence for KDE is $3300 for one platform. (You're much better off using Gnome based Linux distros and doing development via cross-platform APIs like wxWidgets).
.NET 2003 at $95 if you wanted an IDE to develop in (although personally I'd go with Eclipse and MingW32).
Because, you see, the development cost is $0 for using the Windows API (link to the Windows SDK download) and $0 for Visual C++ (link to the command-line compiler).
And for the cost of one KDE development licence you could buy 22 OEM copies of Windows XP Pro at $149., or 35 copies of Visual C++
Who's expensive now?
RIAA ? Your logic is very similar to theirs (when they compute their losses due to piracy).
The Raven
"Your money inspires us to create broken software that helps us reach it."
On a totally unrelated note, THERE IS A BUG in the human-confirmation thingy at the bottom. If you try to submit a message with the wrong text, it won't accept it on the next try even if you correct it. So, quit trying to blame it on firewalls and fix it!
That is just never going to work.
You'd seriously expect people to be able to, never mind want to, install their own OS, gather drivers, etc???
That would work for you, I, and other similar minded people, but the other 99% of the world wouldn't want to, and probably 75% of them just plain couldn't.
Is it "healthy demand" when people are buying PCs to escape from identical machines which are terminally ill?
The problem with 99% of the replies to a Microsoft article is the line "MS sells a crappy OS". However, there is little evidence to support whether or not linux would be any more or less long lived if it was the dominant desktop OS. You can blame Microsoft for BSOD's, of which there have been very few in the last couple of years (RedHat Enterprise has crashed on me just as often). But don't jump all over Microsoft's case just because you come onto slashdot and spread your hatred to the point that someone with a lot of free time decides to act out their hatred through malicious scripts, viruses, etc.
The hatred that is spread against Microsoft only fuels the need for antivirus programs, anti-spyware programs, etc. Why not get upset with the people that have such a hatred for humanity and productivity that they spend all their time trying to mess up good natured people's computers, or bring down the root DNS servers of the world. Who does that? Why?
Furthermore, if computers were sold with the requirement that they came OS free, do you really expect your grandparents to have the slightest clue what OS they NEED? And even better, do you expect them to know how to set it up? I'm sure if you're making comments about this you've gone through an install of Windows and Linux, neither one is dummy proof and honestly the SP2 install of Windows XP is far less complicated than any Linux distro I've seen to date.
Lastly, to the turd that claims that people are moronic for not building their own systems, try watching the prices at dell and price out what the difference actually is. Especially when they have their weekly $750 off coupons.
what a useless way to measure Microsoft performance today. We buy hundreds and hundreds of PCs, reformat them and install Linux before windoz is ever booted. Other M$ applications never even get on the machines. It says nothing about M$ products or utility and only shows they are a proficient tax collector.
I have no idea whether MS is a buy or not, but nearly every computer-related company is down from the height of the bubble. MS isn't down by as much, because it's still quite good at ripping people off.
The relatively flat chart since the crash is likely a result of creative accounting: MS is very good at bringing forward or deferring revenue so that profits come very close to forecasts. It doesn't surprise Wall Street with higher or lower figures that would make its stock more volatile.
... earnings were 34 cents per share... boosted by a tax benefit that amounted to nine cents per share...
r nings/2100-1014_3-5798650.html?tag=nl
http://news.com.com/Tax+break+boosts+Microsoft+ea
Isn't that Microsoft's goal -- to ensure that cookie cutter desktop software solutions tailored for "the average PC user" are ubiquitous?
The people who seem the most unhappy with Microsoft solutions are the technically sophisticated users and those users who have specialized needs.
Why is that, exactly?
Maybe bland production-line shrinkwrapped software solutions really aren't the best fit for everyone?
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
crack? Your non-sequitur really gives it away.
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