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Motley Fool Writes Off Microsoft
The Vista disaster has caught Wall Street's attention before but I've never seen the popular press understand the issues like this argument in the Motley Fool. The opposing argument is a weak statement of faith, essentially "as it was in the beginning is now and forever shall be." "You don't need to watch the 'I'm a Mac, I'm a PC' commercials to see that Microsoft is taking a beating. You see it in the company's financials where its online unit, incredibly, is operating at a loss; overheating Xbox 360 consoles find the company taking a huge warranty hit for a system losing market share to the Wii; and the upgrade wave of its flagship operating system has been more of a ripple than a tsunami. That last point is important. This was supposed to be Microsoft's final feast, the major last hurrah for its Windows Vista operating entry and its Office 2007 suite of applications before the inevitable embrace of cheaper open source operating systems and Web-based apps... In fact, even Microsoft will tell you that its fortunes peaked several months ago."
Of course, I love pouring a tall steaming mug of frosty piss over Microsoft's head. Who wouldn't?
on microsofts rotted corpse!!!!!!
prepare the survey weasels.
MSFT shares are up 3% today after another strong rise yesterday, after announcing their financial results and outlook.
"Weak statement of faith", twitter? That's rich coming from someone whose faith in his own assertions is so weak that he chose to disable comments in his journal rather than make a real effort at refuting critics who post in it.
Here's hoping HD DVD's troubles means that they'll remove all the "secure path" BS from Windows 7. They only did it to placate Hollywood, and it's a major reason why Vista had developmental problems. (Note, they'd have had to do it too if they were supporting Blu-ray instead - the point though is that I'd like to see Microsoft throw a tantrum and remove a "feature" they should never have added in the first place.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
AP
Microsoft Tops Street in 2Q; PC Sales Up
Friday January 25, 9:45 am ET
By Jessica Mintz, AP Technology Writer
Microsoft Beats Street in 2nd Quarter; Vista, Office, Xbox Games Helped
SEATTLE (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. forecast a rosy 2008 -- despite broader economic worries -- after it blew by Wall Street's expectations for a second consecutive quarter.
"We will be impacted just like everybody else," if the U.S. falls into a recession, Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said Thursday. "But overall, we feel very optimistic about our second half."
Company officials touted rising sales in each of Microsoft's business divisions, a slate of important upcoming business-software launches and the growing contribution from sales in non-U.S. markets.
Microsoft raised its outlook Thursday for the rest of its fiscal year, which ends in June, matching Wall Street's forecast and sending shares up in after-hours trading.
The software maker's quarterly earnings jumped 79 percent to $4.71 billion, or 50 cents per share, from $2.63 billion, or 26 cents per share in the second quarter a year earlier. Quarterly revenue climbed 31 percent to $16.37 billion from $12.5 billion.
What part of Microsoft's record earnings yesterday did Slashdot seem to overlook? I think the joke is on us.
http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9857633-56.html?tag=newsmap
Hasta la Vista, Baby .....
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
'Mötley Crüe Writes Off Microsoft'
Gonna be a long day...
"In fact, even Microsoft will tell you that its fortunes peaked several months ago."
Yes, MS' quarterly report released yesterday is all doom and gloom. What with it's 30% increase in revenue and all.
This is especially clear now that Windows 7 is on the horizon. And if MS can survive ME, it can survive anything.
Microsoft just posted great earnings. While I'm no fan of the Microsoft, I always see these wonderfully timed stories and wonder who is paying for them (e.g. - trying to scare up liquidity).
If the Motley Fool and others wanted any dignity at all, they'd shut up and do this sort of reporting for non-event days.
More
While I can see this as a mark of the beginning of the end for Microsoft I really wouldn't write them off just yet. They still have a metric butt-ton of market share, and are still overall profitable. Should they manage to stop the hemorrhaging of cash with the XBox (Which I can easily foresee) and come up with a good reply to Vista (Like they did with Windows ME/Then Windows 2000), then I can see them rebounding quick.
However, I also see the general public becoming more and more sophisticated when it comes to things like Operating Systems and understanding that there are indeed options out there. And with knowledge of options will come people exercising those options.
In other words there's a up and down roller coaster ride ahead but this ride may be coming to a full and complete stop.
But people failed to beat a path to the PS/2; they waited, and used things like EISA until PCI came along and was roughly as good as Micro Channel. IBM finally learned that they didn't own the PC market anymore.
IBM's still around but isn't a colossus astride the computing industry. Microsoft has now discovered that the competition is "good enough" and the Microsoft name isn't enough to force people to follow along with whatever they say. Like IBM, MS isn't going away... but they'll be one option among many in a few years, not the single dominant giant.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I thought Vista was an interim OS between XP and Windows 7?
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
There is a corresponding Bull Argument that argues the Counterpoint - each with its own rebuttal of the other argument.
/.!
So much for Motley Fool writing off Microsoft. Typically - guess which article gets highlighted in
Believe you me.
All the talk about "paid for" services in upcoming OS releases means they have long been making plans to squeeze money out of the common PC user.
Year of the Linux Desktop? Not yet peeps.
MS won't disappear overnight, and besides, it would seem that Motley Fool was one of the few stories pointing to a MS slump, the general web consensus points to better MS earnings.
This tastes of anti MS hype, I wish it were true, but alas...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
and WOOOSH! let the flame fest begin...
/. and I don't see many MS defenders around here much. Personally MS are not very relevant to me, I only use Linux at home, even my gf only uses Linux. And my firm seems in now pressing hurry to upgrade to Office07 or Vista.
except that this is
In a year it has been out I have used Vista only once, and it was a very annoying experience indeed - more to the point I do not know anybody who actually uses Vista. Maybe this is the beginning of MS's slide into irrelevance.
Of course, if Linux is the new boy around town we can expect virus writers to turn their attention to it big time and it to suffer the some of the same problems. I don't know what I prefer - insufferable bloat issues or raging dependency woes really.
But it's in the first article, not the second.
ZOMG, people are specifying XP instead of Vista! Sure, but they're still buying Microsoft. Apple is topping out its niche appeal, and corporations are run by lawyers who hate and fear Google Docs with a cold reptilian passion.
Wise up, nerds. Major purchasing decisions are not taken by people live with their parents in Wyoming. They are taken by grown ups who have mortgages and orthodentist bills to pay, and those people recommend, and will continue to recommend, Microsoft because nobody ever got sacked for doing so.
The upcoming recession may see a few smaller outfits switch to freeware in the hope of chiselling a few dollars off the budget, but that's probably a sign that they're doomed, and so wouldn't have been buying M$ one way or the other.
Still, I'm swimming against the tide of opinion here, if not of history, so feel free to get excited about the prospect of the Evil Empire toppling any day now. Let's compare notes in 5 years and we can spot where you went wrong.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Motley Fool is authoritative? I have seen better reasoning from crackheads.
Vista is not Micro Channel. Vista is Windows ME.
Microsoft is dominating Sony in the console market, overheating 360's or not.
Notice a trend? It would seem that MS' me-too policy (Xbox, Zune, live search, etc.) over the last couple of years has been pretty hard on their cash reserves. I think if they can turn a profit on these things it will have been worth it because $60 billion of cash reserves sounds like too much.... but if that trend continues, we'll see MS in debt by the time the coming recession is over.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
it's the concept actually, that it is ok to send out programming updates without a foolprof means of authentication
this concept has resulted in 2007 being a banner year for hackers and cyber crime. they only result that can be drawn from all of this hacking is that ms/windows is not suitable for commercial business because of its inherent vulnerabilities.
time to move on, and I've got my eye on that Solaris system. that is a good looking system and if that has good tight security, well hopefully ms comprehensive will cover glass breakage
It's not about the money. Want to make more? Just run the printing presses faster. Money hasn't been reliable enough to be used as a measure of performance for nearly a decade now.
Really it's about influence, and that's what Microsoft are losing, have been for several years.
Deleted
"Stocks rose sharply for a third straight session Friday as investors cheered upbeat profit reports from big names like Microsoft Corp. and were reassured by word of a possible buyout of a trouble bond insurer."
and
"Microsoft's bright forecast and earnings that outpaced expectations lent strength to a notion emerging in recent days that perhaps Wall Street had been too pessimistic in its reading of the economy."
So the Fool can say what it likes - it's always a good story to bash M$, but the people who know and who put their money on the line reckon they're wrong. Hell, I wish I had "only" $20Bn in the bank
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Maybe Bill Gate's smartest move was knowing when to leave.
For an enormous company, growing revenue 15% is no small feat.
More importantly, the author shows his breathtaking stupidity by discussing MSFT's cash position - he points to 6/30/04, which was before MSFT's one time $3/share special dividend announced summer of 04. Currently MSFT has over 9.3 billion shares outstanding - that special dividend was a 27 billion cash outlay if we guesstimate that there were 9bill outstanding in 04.
MSFT bought acquantive for 5.9 billion, and yet their recent 10q shows around 20-21B in cash/equivalents, similar to 6/30/07, so this is a company generating a lot of free cash flow.
Full disclosure - no position in MSFT
There's a lot of life in the ole dog yet
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
OK, I'm old enough to have been in this industry when IBM were as dominant as Microsoft are now. We didn't see them start to slide, either. We were only aware that IBM were falling when their decline was already well advanced and unstoppable. I think we're in that position with Microsoft now. Why?
We're heading for a recession. The rebuttal to the FA says:
That's true, of course. But GE's customers can't download an open source aircraft engine for free. Also, and significantly, aircraft engines wear out. If the airlines want to keep flying at all, they have to continue to buy spare parts, sub-assemblies, refurbished engines and, from time to time, new engines. No matter how tight the economy gets, unless all GE's customers go belly up, they will have to continue to buy parts - and GE can at least hope to get some of that business.
As the economy tightens up, one of the things that happens is people start looking at where they can save some money. Software does not wear out. Software carries on working just as well as it did when it was new, until the hardware platform which supports it wears out. And even then, it can usually be transferred to a new hardware platform. So as the economy tightens up, people simply stop buying new software. Where's the need to upgrade, when the software you have works acceptably well?
There are fewer reasons to buy software in a recession, anyway. The total number of seats is not increasing - most companies will be laying off staff. And hardware upgrades which had been planned will be put off, so there will be no need to buy software for new hardware...
And if people have to get new software for one reason or another, for every significant profitable product in Microsoft's inventory, there's a free alternative. Not 'cheap', free. Usually, of as high quality as the Microsoft product or higher. Increasingly, as easy to use as the Microsoft product. The tighter the economy gets, the harder it becomes to justify choosing 'expensive' over 'free'. Furthermore, unlike GE's competitors, Microsoft's free competitors are not subject to the normal rules of the financial market. they can't go bankrupt. The recession will not hurt them much - it is more likely to help them.
I won't hide the fact that I think it's bad for this industry to have one dominant player, be that IBM, Microsoft or Google. I didn't mourn IBM's fall and I shan't mourn Microsoft's. But I don't think you can any longer pretend it isn't happening.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
"Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that."
Microsoft Profit Tops Estimates on Xbox; Shares Rise (bloomberg.com) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2fCzio_sChs&refer=home
Microsoft Reports Record Second Quarter Results (microsoft.com) http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/jan08/01-24fy08Q2earnings.mspx
The article refers to a lot of stuff that is more "wishful thinking" than reality. Microsoft's sales and profits are setting new records every quarter and its products have never been more entrenched than they are now. The authors are living in some alternate reality universe where people are uninstalling Windows, using OpenOffice, and swearing off of Halo 3. The universe we are all in has Windows installs and desktop penetration at an all-time high, Office sales setting new records, and the xbox 360 a runaway success, even with its massive warranty problems. Those things are obvious and I don't even like Microsoft.
If the Motley Fool and others wanted any dignity at all, they'd shut up and do this sort of reporting for non-event days. ...or they could just mod you into oblivion...
Software does not wear out. Software carries on working just as well as it did when it was new, until the hardware platform which supports it wears out. And even then, it can usually be transferred to a new hardware platform. So as the economy tightens up, people simply stop buying new software. Where's the need to upgrade, when the software you have works acceptably well?
After the dotcom bust, the hardware manufacturers had a much tougher time than the software guys. The reason was that all the companies that failed (much as they tend to in a recession) could sell off their hardware as part of the liquidation - so fewer people bought new, they just grabbed bargains from the firesales.
However, the software licenses weren't transferrable, so people still had to buy new softs and the software companies that did survive came out of the bust in a better state than the hardware co.s who were effectively competing against their own, second hand, equipment.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The Wii is scooping up mostly casual gamers. These are the sort of people who will buy up a lot of $20-$30 games, but won't be buying a lot of the more "hardcore" games like Halo, Gears of War, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Mass Effect, Devil May Cry, etc. It's almost two separate markets.
One of the things I'm curious about here is that a lot of the people buying the Wii are not in the audience that is likely to buy many games, like the elderly. I wonder how many of the people who've bought the console will actually buy a lot of even the Nintendo-published games for it like Metroid and Mario. If Nintendo ends up with a usebase where 25-50% of the base is just buying a few casual games, their revenues could take a big hit once the console reaches saturation.
The term is "Nobody got fired for choosing IBM."
Where are they now?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Good point, and you are right on businesses (even large ones) skipping entire versions of Windows. The transportation company I work for ($10 billion in revenue) went straight from NT 3.51 to XP about 2 years ago.
It is possible to turn off Windows Update. If you're willing to pay, you can have Windows Server Update Services, which allows you to pick and choose updates.
And maybe you can cite some sources for me -- was 2007 any worse for Microsoft than it was for anyone else? I mean, aside from Vista being useless...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
So the reason why corporate uptake for M$ Vista has been relatively slow is because.. ...most corporations just lurrrve M$ XP!
...untill they release W7, which those corporations who skipped Vista will almost certainly adopt much earlier.
Guess M$ will have to dip into that $20 billion cash flow reserve of theirs and 'ride this one out'
Oh! I completely forgot: Apple Smuck and Linux OSS** are coming with a vengence.. to a t.v. advert near you.
**Please note that I dual-boot Vista and Kubuntu, though none of the *real users* in my company (you know - the guys who do 'business' and pay for all this stuff) are likely to change OS in the near future since they all seem pretty content achieving what they need to achieve using MS Office, Project, Adobe, SQL Server, Outlook and heaps of intranet apps that run on IE7 (some kool kids are even using Firefox now!) etc. etc. - all running on XP or Vista.
"He Who Dares Wins"
a 60 billion dollar reserve.
Just some food for thought.
You post could have been about the IBM PC 20 years ago.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Microsoft products are like Lego's. You don't always get the pieces you want in a set, but they plug together nicely, and can be centrally managed through Active Directory (very robustly, I might add).
Everybody out there always criticizes Microsoft when they find another company (the flavor of the year) who has a better Lego piece, or two, than Microsoft. It's touted as the best invention ever, and promoted as the downfall of Microsoft.
But as it turns out, it's not a Lego piece at all. It's a K'Nex piece. By itself, it's wonderful and awe inspiring. But when you want it to play nicely with the thousands of Lego pieces you already own, good luck!
MSFT is up on news that profits rose 79%, Motley Fool has an article arguing that MSFT is peaked.
You can make money shorting their stock, so I'd be curious to see how many of you with money in play would go this route.
-BA
It may not have interesting products, but its making plenty of money.
I doubt Vista is a huge flop or a tremendous success.
What's much more interesting is the cash reserves. Dropping by over $10 billion per year? Really?! Are those numbers accurate?
Frequent, poor advice.
Consider the rumblings about the death of various vendor's (actually online distributors) of content. Consider also how DOCSIS 3 works in terms of content QoS.
Apple and Microsoft both have tried to meet consumer demands and are caught in the middle of the distribution/player chain. Open formats are winning, and F/OSS is by no means shutout. MP3s suck; FLAK and various OGGs are much better, but this is also a stratification in the market that parallels audiophile marketing (both the sane and the insane).
Demand is changing things; both Microsoft and Apple are bending to meet the perceived content owners' paranoia. You can walk around 1 Infinite Loop or Microsoft's campus and see the reality of content consumption. Then look on Mac notebooks for wonderful pieces of gear, just like you can on an HP or Dell, that thwart the living hell out of DRM. Why? People want their content; they're willing to pay.
Microsoft's initiatives are as empty and meaningless and obfuscating as Apple's. They're both pandering to the nervous nellies of the MPAA and RIAA and behind them, berserk management ostensibly protecting shareholder 'equity'. The trend towards DRM-free content is larger than either organizations internal initiatives.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
What the Fool is pointing out that Microsoft is a risky investment where the returns are poor.
If you buy shares you want as low risk as possible and decent returns (10-15% is average, somewhere between a low risk and high risk investment).
Microsoft is risky simply because there's so much uncertainty over Xbox 360 warranty claims, poor Vista sales and yet another EU court case.
preteen.
I just got a Wii yesterday. I am a former hardcore gamer. What I mean by that is I don't sit down and play a game for 8-24 hours anymore. I'm too old and I got too many other things to do.
there were two reason I chose a Wii:
1) I have believed since day 1 it would change the market. Basically what it's doing in the living room is a great as what Pong did for the living room.
2) I have a 9 year old boy and a 7 year old girl. Nintendo has many, many more games for that segment then the other two combined. Especially since my daughter specifically asked for "Girl games" her words not mine. that age group will want more games.
of course I will want more games as well. I've been to more then one house where there XBox or Playstation III sits collecting dust while 4 people are laughing and having a good time playing games on the Wii.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Microsoft has multi-billions in cash, and an unfathomable regular revenue stream. Even if Vista totally tanked, Microsoft could write it off and keep rolling. Now if enough stuff tanks, any company would have serious problems, and the aforementioned events may indicate the beginning of these plagues, but Microsoft still isn't going to just go away like so many dot-com's did.
stuff |
You may mock MS, but they just can't seem to help making massive piles of cash year after year. You may not like their products, but you've got to love their business!
From the first minute I heard the announcement - not so much about Gates stepping down as CEO - but walking away from his "day-to-day" to focus on his foundation
Starting from nothing, tp (almost) completely dominating the world of computing - where's Microsoft to go from here?
There's branching to other areas, like Mobile devices, Automobiles and Game Consoles - yea, but isn't everyone trying to do that.
Aside from that, what about their "core" business(es) - the next version of the OS
With all that, the world is going "web" - and people like Google are the places to be in that universe
So where does Microsoft go from here? Well - there not going to go away - but in reality, they've plateaued - and that's not going to change.
Gates' "departure" was in inticipation/reaction to that without a doubt. He's not bailing because their "failing" - it was a rush riding to the top - but now they're there, what? It's just more drudgery from here-on-out, it's not going to be anything meaningful or exciting.
There's always the chance of a "Second Life" - like Apple got with the return of Jobs - but in reality, very very few people or companies - even extremely successful ones ever see that - and I think Gates knows it.
In retrospect, I think Windows-95 was perhaps Microsoft's last giant leap (and/or NT from a different perspective) - and everything else has been pretty much momentum from that.
Excuse me for being a bit sceptical, but the XBox 360 is doing fantastically well, they have a market and the right games for that market... New PCs are still being shipped with MS products and MS office is entrenched into modern information systems decision making.
You have to remember that MS can afford to fix faulty XBoxes, so it ultimately becomes a moot point.
All this on a very good quarter...
I think The Motley Fool just wants good slashdot traffic myself.
I'm getting over a beaut of a head cold and feel awful but this article sure boosted my spirits.
I know some investors that take the Motley Fools' advice pretty darned seriously. I'll be forwarding the URL to their article to them and talk to them this weekend to see what they think of their premise. Ought to make for an interesting discussion. I gotta say I was a little surprised to see that MS's cash pile has been dwindling as fast as it has. What the heck are they spending it on?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
> Major purchasing decisions are not taken by people live with their parents in Wyoming [penny-arcade.com]. They are taken by grown ups who have mortgages and orthodentist bills to pay, and those people recommend, and will continue to recommend, Microsoft because nobody ever got sacked for doing so.
I take it you have never heard of: IBM, SAP, Oracle, or Sun Microsystems. You may be surprised to learn that, to many people who are serious experts in enterprise level system, it's microsoft that's the joke.
Yes, msft rules the weenie desktop market, but microsoft does not rule anywhere else.
IMO: those who think that IT systems start and end with desktop PCs have no business posting about "major corporate purchases." Frankly, you don't know what you're posting about.
Lloyds Bank in the UK (>> $10 billion in revenue - hell, probably >> $10 billion in profits) went NT4 -> XP last year, and I can't see them touching Vista if Windows 7 appears before their next rollout, as they normally do a full hardware and software rollout in one process.
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
The article cites future revenue growth of 10%-15% a year as evidence of MSFTs decline. Huh? Most companies would kill for that sort of growth.
Moderate the article -1 Troll please.
Not a big fan of Microsoft, and prior to my current job, I was a DBA for Oracle and MySQL installs. My new job, however, embedded me firmly in a Microsoft-role.
.NET, and they seem to be really happy with it.
I wasn't prepared to be impressed by SQL Server, but it's ease of use, power, and maintainability are outstanding. The development team uses
Vista and X360 are consumer-products. Their enterprise stuff seems solid (well, except for Server 2003, which hasn't impressed me much), and there is a lot of market share to take away from Sun and Oracle, which would be a big boost to their bottom line.
I don't think they'll be quietly riding off into the sunset...
If the summary already provided the link that parent gave, why is parent "+5 Informative"? Couldn't find the "Redundant" choice, guys?
It sure does not seem like it. I am seeing a lot of criticism of the Motley Fool Article, posted by people who apparently did not read the article. In deference to what the slashdot blurb would have you believe, the MF article is actually very fair and balanced.
I am no great fan of the MF, but you seem awfully silly bashing an article that you did not even read.
Haven't they "leaked" that the next version will be out early for... ummm... every version, or close to that? And don't they usually take a few extra years of "it'll be done _real_ soon now" before they actually release anything?
I guess I should take that as meaning that they're up to the same old tricks, so they'll probably be fine. Still, I do think their business will wane a little, mostly due to EU and standardization pressures, but I'm sure they'll fight tooth and nail to keep their lock-ins. Then again, without Bill who disparages "finite greed" (presumably in favor of the infinite sort), I'm guessing that not having Bill come up with ways to force the market to bend for them will catch up to Microsoft over time.
Actually, Microsoft isn't doing that badly. They're finally profitable in games. The original XBox was a huge financial loss, and there was a real question whether investor pressure would make them drop out of the game market. But they've finally been able to make money in that area with the XBox 360. Operating systems are profitable, but they're not the cash cow they used to be. Microsoft Office remains the big moneymaker.
Microsoft is not doing well in the ad-supported online space, though.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=2y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
This is at best a place to park money for awhile. The day of the MS stock millionaire is long over. As for Vista, I know we'll be deploying but it will be at least another year and a half or Service Pack 2 which ever comes first. And it will only come in on replacement machines at that. I suppose that is a common story everywhere. I'm sure there are various ways to make Vista a success on paper but if all Vista sales commonly do is get a sale that otherwise would have been XP then that is MS doing all the running they can do to stay in one place while MS-tactic adapted competitors nip at their heels.
Well, I'm not too impressed:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=%5EIXIC
You are not allowed to bring common sense to this forum. We have every right to our delusional way of thinking. Every year is the year of the Linux desktop(because it is simply a construct in my mind). Second, we are not a religious cult driven by a dead ideology (your pick of communism, libertarianism, communitarianism) or to think of it, maybe we are (oh boy...). Finally, we don't live in our parents basement, but rather shack up with other like minded nerds (because its not like any of us are getting any tail anyway).
Here's to the year of the Linux desktop 2008 (not to be confused with 2000 to 2007). This of course can only be accomplished by overtaking both the Windows and Mac (which isn't real Unix anyway). Cheers!
So sick of hearing about how Microsoft is dying or irrelevant. It's like your buddy's ex-girlfriend he just won't stfu about because she dumped him. It makes him feel good to put her down. If I was the moderator who posted that story on /. after MSFT posted and 81% increase in profits, I would be ashamed. Great they're dying but they're making fucking billions still and it's still growing! So please stfu! It's wishful thinking by anti-Microsoft jihadists.
But at least a sizeable chunk of that monopoly money's going to be used for some good causes by Bill & Mel's foundation.
I'm sure one day the open source community will win out, but its going to be a long time.
...of Microsoft's dividend payment history to its shareholders.
For the quarter ended December 31, Microsoft's profit increased to $4.71 billion from $2.63 billion during the same period last year.
When you buy a brand new business PC from one of the big OEMs (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc) with XP Pro on it these days, the OEM still had to buy a Vista license and shipped you the "downgrade rights" XP Pro installed without the right to ever take it back to Vista unless you buy the Vista license again. But MS still counts that first O/S sale as a Vista license sale.
Now that's funny, because I recall reading just a few days ago that Microsoft is stating the highest ever profits (or is it revenues?) for its last quarter. And the MS games division announced it's profitable now as well after running for a loss for years.
Vista is a big stumble for MS, no doubt about it. But to say this is the beginning of the end? That's a stretch.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I think I read yesterday that 95% of computers are running ms/windows
maybe so, i ain't got no way to know. but it is certainly true that ms/windows controls enough of the market so that any start-up will have to have a high degree of inter-operability to be viable
I think though that if you can read Word and Excel documents the 90/10 rule will kick in and your ready to run
the Solaris system has some pretty good looking stuff
I think Bill sees the handwriting on the wall too. During CNBC's Maria Bartiromo's interview with Gates, Bono, and Dell in Davos Switzerland he referred to M$oft's new OS simply as "Windows" several times avoiding any reference to Vista at all. With Vista's terrible reviews I expect they will rename Vista sometime in the near future.
But it didn't stop there. Next they were caught culling information on installed software packages when you upgraded from Win3.11 to Win95 in the now infamous Registration Wizard. Because of that act, I never once used a Win95 based OS on any personal system that I owned. Next, we have the infamous NSAKEY. I only started using NT and 2K after I found out that it is trivially easy to revoke it. I have never used IE explorer, because of the free bundling, which was done because of some petty dispute with the Netscape management.
And I have never once used XP. Once upon a time the mighty Intel said, let there be a processor ID. The people rose up and threatened to chop off their heads. When this idea died from public opinion, of course Microsoft just had to do an end around and establish a hash of hardware IDs in windows product activation. Yes I know they have said that they will do nothing with this information and not identify it with personal information. But, lets face it. Personal information was not going to be identified with Intel's processor ID either. It's the fact that it exists at all, that can give advertisers an edge to relate the ID later to personal information, using in house databases, or even overreaching government agencies doing this, that should be the concern. No I wont use XP and am frankly happy with 2K for the time being. And obviously, I don't trust Microsoft at their word.
But that is not even the end of the story. Along comes fat cat, uber-rich, big media saying, there shall be digital rights management. Microsoft didn't even question the need, before making Vista lousy with it and bundling the latest media player with the OS.
Sorry. For me, its not the perceived lack of performance of Vista. In fact I have talked with some administrators about it, and despite it being a fairly heavy memory hog, apparently Vista is an extremely stable OS. For me, its the sum total of all the evils over the years, treating their users like dirt and not ever listening to their opinions. For me they have already proven that they will never change, despite any statements to the contrary by their management.
They dug this hole for themselves and now they are going to have to lie in it.
My primary machine is an AMD 64 bit running 2K duel booted with Fedora Core 64bit. If the wine project ever gets certain various small applications working flawlessly, then the 2K partition on my computer goes away in a heartbeat and Microsoft will never grace any of my personal CPU's again.
Ob Disclaimer: Yes I know that many of you will be able to come up with more MS evils. In fact I think there is a web page out there somewhere. ;P
MS's share price today is as good as it was in 2001. Absolute terms, which means, after taking inflation into account, you would actually be worse off than you were 6 years ago.
People betting their bonuses (and their clients' savings) are not buying MS.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Better get some http://sploids.com/ then! (Would Parallels be kinda like Sploids?)
Server 2003 has been by far very worthy of the title "Server". It's the first Windows Server OS that I can actually depend on to not crash or hang mysteriously at a too-frequent rate. Very stable and a decent performer too. It's only evil side is that the 32-bit Server 2003 and a 32-bit Oracle 10g engine does not scale worth crap like 32-bit Oracle on a 32-Bit Unix/Linux platform will do (as far as the 32-bit platform allows anyway). It will run out of SGA memory quickly if your database & app gets only moderately large (> 25GB and >100 users) by todays standards. You really need to run the 64-bit version of Oracle on 64-bit Windows 2003 to get any serious performance out of it (or better yet, 64-bit Oracle on a 64-bit *nix for the best performance possible), but then you're stuck with not being able to use the 64-bit Windows box for anything else but a dedicated Oracle server because if you try to run any other apps on it concurrently, it'll fall on its face and become unstable. The pure 64-bit Oracle/Unix platform is about as perfect as you can get. My biggest DB is Oracle 10gR2 on a big 16 processor AIX machine and it's a juggernaut that runs at nonstop warp speed.
MS SQL 2000 has serious design flaw problems with row locking getting automatically escalated into page locks that cause deadlock situations that were undiagnosable and unfixable. This deficiency is supposed to be fixed in SQL 2005, but I haven't got to work with SQL 2K5 much yet, since we decided to stick with Oracle on all our biggest databases after getting burned by SQL 2000.
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Johnny, the DBA King Daddy Paw-Paw... posting A/C
If you think that is good you know nothing about inflation and will starve whne you get your pension (if any).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
All of you dummies that think you're millionaires due to your holdings in Microsoft stock should sell now while you have a chance, otherwise you'll be the suckers at the bottom of the pyramid scheme that is Microsoft.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I have never been a big Microsoft supporter, but their numbers don't lie. From CBCNews dated today : 1). Microsoft said it was helped by rising sales of Windows-based personal computers. The company said it has sold 100 million copies of its new Vista operating system since it was launched a year ago. 2). The company also reported better-than-expected sales of Xbox 360 game consoles and improved software sales to business. 3). After markets closed Thursday, the software giant said its profits rose 79 per cent to $4.71 billion US, or 50 cents a share, from $2.63 billion, or 26 cents a share in the same period last year. That beat the consensus estimate from analysts polled by Thomson Financial by four cents a share. Revenue at the company rose 31 per cent to $16.37 billion from $12.5 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts had expected $15.95 billion US in sales.
"Microsoft Xbox 360 Sales Fall 2.3% As 'Halo Effect' Fizzles"
...
"Microsoft shipped 4.3 million Xbox 360 systems in the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with 4.4 million systems during the same period in 2006."
"But Microsoft's second-quarter report, released Thursday, indicates that Xbox 360 sales have sunk to below pre-Halo 3 levels. The company's Entertainment and Devices Division -- which houses the Xbox and related products and the Zune digital music player -- squeaked out a modest 3% revenue increase to $3.1 billion in the second quarter."
- http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205918713&subSection=News
...MS profits surge, up 79%.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2008/tc20080124_168649.htm
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
My first instinct when an international company traded in Dollars announces record profits is to see how the exchange rates changed between the two quarters.
In this case MS got a large boost by the weaker Dollar. But in no way does it account for a 79% increase in profits from the last quarter.
So let's look at what can account for MS getting huge profits:
1. They've gotten leaner. There were no layoffs and salaries are a large chunk of their expenses, so that's not it.
2. They've cut expenses by not printing DVDs and manuals and instead having people DL their software. That could be a part of it.
3. The number of computers sold has increased. Don't have the numbers but possible due to weak dollar making computers cheaper.
4. They've increased prices. Probably. We know their retail price for Vista is way larger than the retail price for XP but they sell only a small fraction through retail, and I doubt the OEMs would budge so easily without giving DOJ a call. Not likely.
5. They stopped hemoraging money on XBOX and Live. Possible.
All this of course doesn't mean that their long-term outlook is favorable. Cheap hardware makes the TCO of machines lower but also puts the pressure on OS prices. Everybody's down on them and is thus more aware of the alternatives like Macs and Linux.
It's doubtful they can ever again be a growth company. The number of PCs being sold each year is slowing down and that was their main driving force.
Although if they are going down because of some disruptive innovation like cellphones replacing computers it's going to take a long, long time. They've basically achieved a cockroach status just like IBM. You can be sure that Linux or Mac won't kill them.
Dejan
I think I stopped reading after the ninth or tenth dollar sign. Wow.
Jeez, mass constipation on Wall Street! I guess the real investment lesson here is to buy stock in whoever makes Metamucil.
Sorry, but the abuse of that word has got to stop.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Linux people get all worked up about MS spreading FUD but damn if Slashdot isn't one of the worse sources of FUD there is. MS's cash situation is bleak? Oh woe is me, only 18 BILLION dollars in cash! Whatever will they do? Why if they started losing money they might only be able to operate for a few decades off of that! Oh and they are so close to losing money, I mean their profits were only 14 BILLION dollars last year.
Please get real here, MS has an amazingly solid financial position, one many companies would kill for.
ABSTRACT: Not only is technology titan Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) exquisitely positioned to ride out this storm, it has made a number of strong changes in recent years that make it a company worth owning. This was part of a "Dueling Fools" feature. Someone had to talk "bear" about Microsoft. Just because Twitter wet his pants doesn't mean you can give half the story here. Motley Fool favors MSFT.
And Lord, I don't like Microsoft either, but you are discrediting the Motley Fool undeservedly by telling half the story. This is not the way to make an argument.
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Toro
And if you're the type to complain of NYTime's bias, isn't the Times more likely to think ill of Microsoft than to say something good about it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/technology/25soft.html
And their share's value is at the same level as it was in 2001 (i.e. it is less valuable).
What good it is to make more profits than ever if you have to spend all your savings to support them?
Check the trend of MS's share price: nice down then up curve with highest points between 2001 and now. That is,it has recovered a bit but by no means have the confidence of the professional market makers.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080125/ap_on_hi_te/earns_microsoft/
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
so where is the Vista only product?
You likely won't ever see one. It's bad marketing to indicate that a product is restricted. Instead, you'll see "Optimized for Vista", or "Works with Vista", or "Vista recommended for best results".
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
You said the exact same thing in 2001. It's getting old.
Apple only sell upgrades.
Strictly speaking you are factually incorrect. An upgrade contains some sort of mechanism to verify you have an existing copy either already installed on the target volume, or else have some other proof of existing ownership of a previous version (the old install CD, etc).
Mac OS X contains NO such installation restrictions whatsoever, unlike typical Microsoft upgrade packages that, though they do include all the data required for a complete install, are modified to include proof of previous ownership. Furthermore, to my knowledge there are far fewer legal encumbrances on Apple's OS either (such as an EULA that prohibits you from using the new OS without being a licensee of a previous version, or restricting transferability to new hardware).
You can only run MacOS on a Mac. You can't buy a Mac without buying a MacOS license as well.
Technically you do NOT need a Mac to run Mac OS X. Most would find the Mac OS X CD about as useful as a coaster, but technically savvy people have been known to have gotten Mac OSX running on commodity Intel Core Duo hardware.
As far as not being able to buy a Mac without a Mac OS license--how is that different from the majority of PCs sold in retail today? You cannot walk into a Best Buy and pick up any machine there and ask them to give you one with a blank hard drive, and give you a discount for not using the Windows license. Yes, the situation with Macs is even worse, but it is a problem on the PC side too--there has been an uphill battle to get manufacturers to sell "naked PCs" to users so they can install the OS of their choice, even while Microsoft has in the past launched campaigns portraying VARs that sell "naked PCs" as being evil, or at least shady enablers of piracy. Finally, even if you have managed to avert the obvious Microsoft Tax, you still pay indirectly on "Windows certified" hardware, because you have to pay to cover the costs of Windows driver development, certification and signing even if you never use the product with Windows. Basically you cannot buy a PC without giving Microsoft at least some of your money
Apple uses a hardware dongle, Microsoft needs you to demonstrate you already have a copy.
There is no dongle with Apple--you are using such terms to convey a bias. It does look at the TPM integrated within the machine. Those are two different things that work in somewhat different ways, even if the end purpose id the same (to limit functionality to a specific device).
I am no fan of either MSFT or Apple--both are digital-rights control-freaks entirely too preoccupies with lock-in. However, I'd have to say that Apple's strategy with Mac OS X is much more considerate of consumers (it is definitely the lesser of the two evils).
With Apple, you get Mac OS X . That's it. There isn't a convoluted product line combined with licesning schemes that make your brain hurt. You get all the features of OS X and all is good. Buy one copy or buy it for the family. easy to figure it out.
Contrast that with Microsoft: Vista Basic or Premium or Business or Ultimate? Wait...I don't get the jazzy "wow" stuff with Basic? What a gyp! Now...do I get the upgrade, or full retail, or OEM or enterprise licensing? Am I even legally entitled to buy the OEM version (ie. did I buy it with the right kind of/amount of hardware)? Hold on---I can technically put the "system builder" OEM on another machine, but I might not be able to activate it because OEM licenses restrict transferability? Am I qualified for an upgrade? (don't assume yes always--unlike Mac OS X ther are restrictions on what versions, editions, licenses that are upgradeable). And don't even go into the Virtual Machine issues...plus ALL of this changes from one release to the next. MS licensing is a complete mess and has been for years.
On that basis, comparing the price of Mac OS X to the full retail price of Vista Ulimate (the edition which most closely competed with it) could be co
Why do you feel the need to lie for Microsoft?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=1d
It's down 2 bucks.
It's up over the last 6 months, but nothing outside the overall market trend.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Don't take this the wrong way, but do you really think it's OK to be "for" an election candidate in a foreign country? Maybe I'm just an over sensitive Canuck (highly possible) but if a USian told me that he was "for Harper" or "for Dion", I would find that somewhat offensive.
I recall being pretty offended by Michael Moore when he made pronouncements about who Canadians should vote for in one of our recent Federal elections.
Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in the outcome of the US Presidential election (it affects everyone on earth), and I certainly have strong opinions about which Presidential candidates would be good for Canada. I just don't really think it would be in good taste for me to openly be for a particular candidate.
Then again, maybe you're a US expat..
I wrote them off many years ago, and forgot about them. Hmmm... I remember vaguely that they spammed me a few times about something so I tossed them in my email block list and removed them from my browser bookmarks and that's the last I've heard of them until now. I thought they'd gone under after jumping the shark.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Can Netcraft confirm that Microsoft is dying?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
You're right, and we have a couple of these WinOnly apps, but we're just finishing moving to a server, whereupon the user-local machines might be able to skate by being Linux (or Mac). My sole reason for not *yet* bringing my Drake box into work is because proponents of Linux need to demonstrate a proportionally higher level of competence to navigate past irrational emotional reactions. I'd rather have y'all laugh at my mistakes than my colleagues.
However, I have announced my intention, to use XP until my current machine croaks, and then Linux, and received a response approaching the low end of lukewarm (up from frosty.)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Oh, the irony...
They could tie a Vista sale with another Halo sale and the fake anti-Microsoft retards would be on their way penis rubbing to another Halo purchase!
I got a laugh out of it.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..