Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Posts First Quarterly Loss Ever

Posted by samzenpus on from the hole-in-the-bucket dept.

HangingChad writes "Microsoft's announcement of a late October release date for Windows 8 was eclipsed by its earnings report, in which the computer giant posted its first-ever quarterly loss since going public in 1986. The loss stems from Microsoft's continued struggles with the online services division."

41 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We waited for this for too long!

    1. Re:Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      NSFW

    2. Re:Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes!! They are totally in their final days! If they do this 80-100 more times they'll be finished!!!

    3. Re:Yay! by danomac · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft made a bad acquisition and they lost money. They have a long way to go before their situation gets dire.

      I guess when you're big enough you can do a six billion dollar oops and nothing much happens.

    4. Re:Yay! by HarrySquatter · · Score: 5, Informative

      You're joking, right? Last fiscal year they had net income of $23 billion and the previous quarter they made they made about $21 billion in revenue and net income of $6.6 billion.

    5. Re:Yay! by danomac · · Score: 5, Informative

      I probably shouldn't respond to an AC... but oh well.

      I actually read TFA and it said they lost $6B due to a bad acquisition and that's why the quarterly profits were where they were. I made a deduction from that article that it isn't going to affect Microsoft in any way really and posted a reply to the 'finally they're going down' comment.

      I'm not what you'd call a fan of Microsoft in any way, I use their products because I have to.

      Basically what happened is a bug hit Microsoft's windshield , and Microsoft will flick on the wipers and be on their merry way.

    6. Re:Yay! by Johann+Lau · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I kind of stopped wanting Microsoft to die. We need something new that DOESN'T suck (not just one, make that 2-3). Death of MS would accomplish nothing but more consolidation for the other poopyheads.

    7. Re:Yay! by Pesticidal · · Score: 5, Funny

      Shouldn't that be Brokeback Mountain Lion?

    8. Re:Yay! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I kind of stopped wanting Microsoft to die. We need something new that DOESN'T suck (not just one, make that 2-3). Death of MS would accomplish nothing but more consolidation for the other poopyheads.

      Apple is enemy number 1 right now. Not Microsoft. For the older folks on here they remember IBM as the bad guy and MS as the good guys and so on. I really do hope Windows Phone 8 succeeds yes I know slashdotters may not agree with me, but it is good for competition. Google could decide it is not worth it to be sued and sign an agreement with Apple to leave the market and have them only use Google services or something scary. You never know. Infact, if the lawsuits get worse I would do just that if I were Schidmt at Google. Andriod is a loss leader anyway they make money with searches.

      Anyway not to go offtopic competition is good and slashdotters should consider their stance on Microsoft. They are not the scary guys who made crapware 10 years ago anymore. Windows 7 !=WindowsME/Dos4, Windows Phone != WinCE, and IE 10 != IE 6.

      Apple is pretty cool still for many so my post is controversial but Apple scares me much more than MS and they are far more powerful now. Just my 2 cents even if they do make a Unix like consumer oriented OS.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
  2. Another Shitty Summary. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The loss stems from a giant write down of a purchase gone bust ($6.2billion) from 2007. Otherwise it would have been a great quarter for "M$".

    But don't let that stop the speculation about how "M$" is about to die.

    1. Re:Another Shitty Summary. by jcr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They're not going to die this year, but they do have a long decline ahead of them, just like IBM in the 90s. Ballmer's been wasting the shareholders' money on failing ventures for many years now, and the Windows/Office cash cow is running out of steam.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:Another Shitty Summary. by je+ne+sais+quoi · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was in fact NOT a great quarter for Microsoft. I agree that the $6.2 billion loss on the acquisition is a red herring, but if you disregard that and look at the rest of their business, you'll find that their windows revenue declined 13% Yes, DECLINED 13%. Now, you can further write off most of that decline by saying that this is due to the reduced cost of Windows 8 that Microsoft offered to people buying Windows 7 now, but even after you do that, Windows revenue declined 1%. That's not huge, but they still DECLINED in windows sales. You know... WINDOWS... one of the two cash cows that Microsoft owns? Microsoft's core business is shrinking. If I help Microsoft stock, I'd be a bit worried. (For what it's worth, I do hold Apple stock, and I'm worried there too, Microsoft's wave has crested, Apple's is at the peak so there's nowhere to go but down, I'm just waiting for the right time to sell, it might be now.)

      But don't let that stop the speculation about how "Microsoft" is doing great.

      --
      Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
    3. Re:Another Shitty Summary. by bitt3n · · Score: 5, Funny

      the Windows/Office cash cow is running out of steam.

      I think this is a relevant moment to reflect on that timeless investment maxim, "never put money in a company whose profits depend on a steam-powered cow."

      --
      how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
    4. Re:Another Shitty Summary. by cpu6502 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not me. I'm buying a new PC/laptop NOW while it still comes with Windows 7, versus getting stuck with Vista Part 2 (Win8).

      Oh and not everything is bright & shiny. The article continues: "The charge was an acknowledgement that the companyâ(TM)s struggling online services division is a significant financial drag on the company, losing nearly $2 billion over the past year in addition to the $6.2 billion writedown. Microsoft is still pouring money into runner-up search engine Bing, but it only has a fraction of the market share rival Google enjoys. "It brings into question Microsoftâ(TM)s ability to compete on the advertising-driven web and suggests this is a market segment that is beyond Microsoft, creating long-term doubts over Bingâ(TM)s future," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, said via email."

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
  3. Loss due to 8 billion write down. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, Microsoft did not bring in less money than it spent. It has decided to wash its hands off of some of the investments it made. It wrote down the value of some of the stuff it owns, and that is shown as a loss.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  4. Ballmer by twistedcubic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This should be the end of Steve Ballmer's reign. He was a genius at muscling OEMs into screwing over the competition, but now that Windows is so ubiquitous, there's nothing else for him to do but retire.

  5. Take a look at the details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That loss is entirely down to the aQuantive 6.2 billion writedown. As far as analyst estimates are concerned, taking that into account, this is actually a beat. Take a look at after-hours stock price movement. Did MSFT get slammed?

    1. Re:Take a look at the details by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Funny

      That loss is entirely down to the aQuantive 6.2 billion writedown. As far as analyst estimates are concerned, taking that into account, this is actually a beat. Take a look at after-hours stock price movement. Did MSFT get slammed?

      No, but in a distant corner of the galaxy, Gronek II, Emperor of the Seventh Moon of Choil, after a tasty breakfast of fried duzelwip, lightly salted wurp jelly and a hot steaming cup of rinok-sphoo, opens up his paper to find out that his most beloved child, the fruit of his loins, the offspring of his brief but tumultuous marriage to Princess Nerb the Six-breasted; Steve Ballmer, has ceased to throw chairs, fuck over Netscape and perform all those other ceremonies one would expect of a scion of the proud house of Choil, and in his greater anger has spat out an orifice-full of hot rinok-sphoo. Before the Sixth Moon of Choil has done its second transit, the invasion fleet will be in place, and Steve Ballmer, once proud Prince of Choil will have to answer for his actions.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  6. "the loss stems from..." by Haxagon · · Score: 4, Informative

    "The loss stems from Microsoft's continued struggles with the online services division."

    That's a flat-out deception! The loss stems from the fact that they made a 6 billion dollar write-off. The summary makes it seem like their online division is just naturally bleeding billions.
    Millions, maybe, but not billions.

    1. Re:"the loss stems from..." by DragonWriter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "The loss stems from Microsoft's continued struggles with the online services division."

      That's a flat-out deception!

      No, its not.

      The loss stems from the fact that they made a 6 billion dollar write-off.

      A $6.2 billion write-off against a $6.3 billion dollar purchase of an online advertising firm in 2007 that was intended to be a main engine of profit for their online services division. When you purchase a business for $6.3 billion to reinforce a particular part of your company, and five years later recognize that its only worth $100 million (or less than 1/60th of what you paid for it), its pretty fair to describe as that part of the company as struggling.

      The summary makes it seem like their online division is just naturally bleeding billions.
      Millions, maybe, but not billions.

      Microsoft themselves, in the write-down, is recognizing that $6.2 billion that they spent on their online services division might as well have been piled up as cash and made into the world's largest currency bonfire.

      Bleeding in worthless acquisitions is still bleeding. Some might attempt to distinguish losses from acquisition write-downs from losses from other operations, but with Microsoft -- and many other large firms -- acquisitions are a key and regular part of their operations. If their acquisition strategy is bad and bleeding money, they are bleeding money just as much as if they were losing it from other operations.

    2. Re:"the loss stems from..." by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The summary makes it seem like their online division is just naturally bleeding billions. Millions, maybe, but not billions.

      I agree that it mis-attributed the cause, but they lost 2 billion last year without the write-down, which is plural billion, which is billions. They are bleeding billions.

  7. MSFT got distracted by... by acjacinto · · Score: 4, Funny

    0xB16B00B5

    Ref: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/07/19/1923200/microsoft-apologizes-for-inserting-naughty-phrase-into-linux-kernel

  8. Positive cash flows by Mean+Variance · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They wrote down a turd whose asset value wasn't worth what they paid. Look at the cash flows. They continue to generate billions of cash.

    SEC filing

  9. Blood in the Water by amiga3D · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In and of itself this isn't a big deal. They wrote off some bad investments, so what? The problem is that everyone watches MS looking for any sign of weakness. It's more the perception that they don't have it anymore than any reality. I believe this is the beginning of the end, not of MS but of their overwhelming dominance that they've enjoyed for so long.

  10. Write down is still money that was spent by DragonWriter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No, Microsoft did not bring in less money than it spent. It has decided to wash its hands off of some of the investments it made.

    The second sentence is basically true, but the first is somewhat misleading. Essentially, they recognized that a $6.3 billion purchase of aQuantive that they made (which wasn't counted as an expense at the time, because it was treated as the acquisition of an asset of equal value to the purchase price) was, in fact, almost a pure expense, since the asset they acquired turns out to be pretty much entirely worthless (they took a $6.2 billion writedown against the $6.3 billion purchase.)

    But that writedown is money that was actually spent, its just money that was spent in 2007 and not counted as an expense then.

  11. Article: It failed to see iPhone and touchscreen by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In addition to its $6.2 billion disaster of a purchase, Microsoft made another critical mistake in 2007: It failed to recognize the debut of Apple's iPhone as the game-changer it turned out to be and missed the launch of the touchscreen revolution. Its partnership with troubled Finnish cell phone company Nokia notwithstanding, Windows phones barely have a toehold in the iOS-Android duopoly.

    It is par for the course for Microsoft to phoo phoo anything new (Remember "640K memory is enough for everyone", "You mean companies are going to print their URLs in their advertisements?" ) and then play catch up. Usually that strategy worked out for Microsoft because corporate computers formed 90% or more of the computing platforms in the world, and it had a stranglehold on that market.

    Two things stymied Microsoft in the cell phone arena. First was obvious: It lacked market dominance for ram through bad but barely adequate competitor and swamp out the competition.

    But there was a second player, that we slashdotter would loathe to give credit to. The much maligned evil phone companies. They are used to getting hefty margins peddling corded and cordless plain old telephone equipment. They saw what happened to the manufacturers of the ubiquitous beige boxes. They were reducing competing purely on price, the brutal price war changed the landscape. In the 1990s the hardware accounted for 95% of the cost of the computer and the software was hardly 5%. While software prices remained stable and went up (MS-Office retailed for $550 when the PCs had fallen below 500$ mark). The telcos were determined to not to let that happen to them. Being incompatible with Microsoft, and not giving it any toehold was the common strategy.

    So even if someone in Microsoft saw the threat of iPhone that company is too big to move nimbly, too bogged down in earlier mode of competing, it had made too many enemies, it has stabbed the back of too many partners and it has scared off too many partners.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  12. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Shit, dont any of you know Accounting 101?

    (M$)

  13. Break Them Up by geoffrobinson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They would actually be more valuable broken up. Windows could still do their thing. Office could support whatever platform they wanted to. Imagine a version of Office for Mac with a comparable version of Excel and Access. SQL Server on Linux boxes.

    Also, I would say there is a difference between decline and not being in your high growth phase and abnormally dominant phase.

    --
    Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
  14. Re:Article: It failed to see iPhone and touchscree by real-modo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Microsoft's problem is exactly that it has bought into this "threat of the iPhone" meme.

    Microsoft and Apple have different markets and different sales channels. By trying to compete with Apple, Microsoft is exchanging a position of dominance in enterprise "productivity" computing for one of abject weakness in consumer/mobile/fashion computing. In so doing, it is alienating its partners and customers even more than usually.

    Sure, enterprise computing is a mature market, and it's not possible to continue double-digit growth in it any more. Big deal. Are electricity utilities reinventing themselves as iOS app developers? No; they are making good money in a static to declining market. That's the mature, high-return, low-risk strategy.

    Microsoft needs to ignore Apple; if it doesn't, lawyers will be getting fat off aggrieved shareholders.

  15. So Ballmer can't even buy cashcows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It seems to me the cash cows they can milk by raising the prices, but Ballmer can't create NEW cash-cows internally in MS, not only that, this tells me he can't even BUY new cash cows from outside.

    You can make light of this, but this is spent money, and yet it took him 5 years to realize he'd wasted it???? The man is an idiot, a shouty salesman whose biggest sales job is to keep himself in power.

    He's losing the Windows market, this is what gets me the most, you can see it all unfolding in slow motion as people switch away from Windows and he's making it worse by splitting Windows into two competing versions! It reminds me of IBM making PCs and also selling cloned PCs in competition with itself. It made IBM clearly inferior because even they didn't believe their PCs were worth it.

    Now we have MS, launching 2 tablets, one that is more compatible than the other, but not fully compatible, and one that has a better battery life but not as good as the competition. Two half products in a market that's getting away from them.

    And nobody dares sack shouty salesman for fear of chairs flying???

  16. Re:Mod Up: Informative by LordLucless · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sorry, apology? Looks through my posting history - I'm exactly the opposite of a Microsoft apologist. When I see a headline saying Microsoft's taken a quarterly loss for the first time, and it's due to struggling online services, I'm expecting it to be the thin end of the wedge - that MS' new strategies are failing, and that it's OS and Office divisions are no longer drawing enough money to keep the behemoth lumbering.

    That's not what's happening. Rather, they've taken the losses of the last 5 years, and conglomerated them into a single, large, writedown that is only really meaningful for tax purposes. In short, it's an accounting glitch, and it's being spun as the opening turn of the company's death spiral. I'm annoyed, not because I want MS to be shown as profitable, but because it's a) spin, and deceptive, and b) disappointing. I was hoping for a real decline, not some accountancy artifact.

    --
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
  17. 28% Windows market share by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    50 million Windows 7 licenses/quarter.
    76 million Android activations/ quarter
    46 million iOS devices, 50 million is you add the Mac sales / quarter.

    See for yourself, they're market share is down to less than 30%, soon Apple will be selling more iOs devices than Microsoft sells Windows.

    1. Re:28% Windows market share by asdf7890 · · Score: 4, Informative

      You don't have to make money, directly or otherwise, to have market share, nor do you have to make money to have an impact on your competition. And when discussing Windows' market share with regard to, say, desktop installations, no one discounts those installs that are pirated copies (most are in some parts of the world) because whether or not those installs made money for MS does not affect that fact that their OS is used on those machines.

    2. Re:28% Windows market share by asdf7890 · · Score: 5, Informative

      That isn't really an apples-to-oranges comparison though. The desktop/laptop markets are different enough from the phone/tablet ones at the current time that you probably shouldn't compare Windows 7 against iOS and Android.

      Also iOS and Android are growing fast due to new kit the people previously didn't own - they are not replacing Windows in most cases. MS's install base is rather impressive compared to iOS and Android so even at their current growth rate (which they can't maintain indefinitely - there will be a saturation point in the market somewhere) it'll be much time before they come close to eclipsing Windows.

      I'm happy for you to put Microsoft down, but I recommend not using obviously flawed statistics as it just looks like desperation (when such desperation is probably not required).

    3. Re:28% Windows market share by Xest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wait, you forgot to include my fridge and central heating system, neither of these run Windows either. Christ, even throwing servers into the mix where operating systems like Linux hold a greater share would make more sense than mobile.

      Honestly, I'd like to see more competition in the desktop OS market too, but pretending desktop licensing and mobile operatings systems are in the same market is fucking stupid.

      Mixing some arbitrary devices into the OS mix doesn't change the fact that Microsoft is still far and away the most dominant entity in the desktop/laptop market.

      It doesn't really matter how many iOS devices Apple sells or Android devices Google and friends sell, people still aren't going to be writing software, producing spreadsheets, creating presentations, creating web pages, using most business systems, and authoring documents, on their tablets and phones. Have you tried doing any lengthy amount of office work on a mobile device? Without turning it into a desktop/laptop by attaching a keyboard/mouse it's the quickest route to insanity. Tablet versions of much common desktop software such as Office pale in comparison to the real thing. For this reason the key point is that no matter how many extra smartphones/tablets are sold out there, the effect on Windows desktop license sales is going to be negligible. People may be buying tablets, but few are foregoing a PC/laptop as a result, they just get both. Christ, up until recently you couldn't even activate an iOS device and get content onto it without a computer anyway.

      Yes mobile is becoming ever more important, no it's not going to replace the desktop, it just extends where you can do some of your desktop work (e-mail, web apps). Touch is great, but it's not the be all and end all, it's an extremely shit input method for many, many common tasks still.

      This is why you can't lump mobile and desktop together, for the most part they're different markets, the areas in which they intersect are fairly small and limited to for example, situations like tablets acting as a good carry round the home web browser instead of a netbook.

  18. Smartest guys by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    a $6.3 billion purchase of aQuantive

    Seriously - whoever made this deal for aQuantive is a certified genius. That was about 1000x their earnings. People say Amazon investors are absolutely batshit crazy for buying at 187x earnings, and they're not a third-rung company.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  19. Re:More like 72% lost share by Miamicanes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Windows might be losing market share to OSX. God only knows whether it's gaining or losing market share compared to desktop Linux this week/month/year, and it doesn't particularly matter because any change is below the margin of error anyway. Windows is not, however, losing market share to Android Phones or iPhones.

    In America, at least, 99.9% of the people who own an Android phone or iPhone own at least one desktop PC, laptop, or both IN ADDITION to their phone.

    Microsoft lost most of their mobile market share almost OVERNIGHT when they stupidly announced that the HTC HD2 would never run Windows Phone because "it had too many buttons", and just about everyone who owned a phone running Windows Mobile ran straight to Android without passing "Go". THAT is Microsoft's lost market share. Nearly every Android phone and iPhone sold since that time represents a PDA phone sold to somebody who formerly owned a phone that was a half step better than a Jitterbug. People who own an Android phone or iPhone today and do NOT own a PC or laptop probably didn't own a PC or desktop 4 years ago, either. People who owned a desktop PC and a laptop 4 years ago mostly still own a desktop PC, a laptop, and have recently added a tablet (Android or iPad) to the pile, and probably have a best of breed Android phone or iPhone filling the role of "pocket laptop with wireless internet access", just like they did 4 years ago.

    If you REALLY want to see lost market share, do your census a month after Windows 8 comes out, and count anybody who yawned and stayed with Windows 7 (or reverted to Windows 7 after being unimpressed by Windows 8) because Windows 8 is ugly, looks like Unity on a bad day, and took away Aero Glass because Microsoft apparently wanted to make extra sure the reaction of everybody with a high end PC would be "yuck, Windows 8 is fugly".

    If it's not obvious, I do think that Microsoft has gone batshit crazy and suicidal in its old age. If you look at just about every business and strategic decision they've made since ~2008, they've dropped the ball and bent over backwards to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at every possible opportunity. They've become irrelevant to everyone who used to own a Windows Mobile phone, they've completely pissed off two entire generations of Windows Phone buyers by screwing them out of upgrades and saddling them with a phone that was obsolete roughly 3 months after it came out, they locked them down for reasons nobody can figure out (since they don't actually have any real software that anybody will pay for to generate royalties for Microsoft), they've completely dropped the ball on trying to run an ad network like Google, and now it looks like they've spent the past 3 years brainstorming ways to give people who own Windows 7 a reason to stick with it for the next 10 years.

    And it makes me sad. As fashionable as it is around here to bash Microsoft, they've generally been a force for good. If nothing else, they gave us mice with scroll wheels. But lately... (shakes head)... well, the only word I can really think of to describe it is "Schadenfreude". It's almost heresy to say, but they really DO need Bill Gates to come back and save Microsoft from the zombie it's become. Microsoft's current management is like Apple under Scully.

  20. How many MS apps REQUIRE Windows?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'll point something else out here: Microsoft has a lot of products, a LOT, and most of them are small income products. The one thing they have in common is THEY ARE BUILT FOR THE WINDOWS ECOSYSTEM.

    If they lose the OS market, they lose everything. Because Ballmer's pride won't ever let him port all those apps to whatever is selling, he'll follow Windows market share down to zero.

    I know it's popular to say "well IBM are still doing well", but they're not doing well in the PC market place. They were lucky to find a lot of government contracts and services saved them, but they lost the PC market to others. Will MS find a market to run to if they lose Windows??? If so what market??

    Is it Schadenfreude to simply spell out the truth here?? They've ALREADY lost the OS market, they're LOSING the apps market. The apps market trails the OS market, because of the legacy sales. Those XP users are potential customers too, even if they're not sales in this quarter. But Ballmer is so stuck in the past, he thinks he can force XP users to upgrade to Windows 8, but they (I include me in this) will go to Android or iOS. I'm switching to Android tablet after this, already have an Asus infinity on order.

  21. Re:More like 72% lost share by rsborg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If it's not obvious, I do think that Microsoft has gone batshit crazy and suicidal in its old age. If you look at just about every business and strategic decision they've made since ~2008, they've dropped the ball and bent over backwards to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at every possible opportunity

    As much as I dislike Microsoft, you're being a bit unfair - they are competing with companies like Google and Apple - who execute *very* well. If your competitors are bringing their A game and you've been bringing your B game for the past decade but were the only game in town back then, of course you will look bad.

    Keep in mind that,while bringing their B game, MSFT has been making money hand over fist for that past decade and their top-line is amazing. It's just, they are no longer the biggest/brightest/boldest company around.

    --
    Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
  22. Re:More like 72% lost share by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bill Gates didn't make Microsoft, IBM did. Like Steve Jobs said: "Microsoft went into orbit because it had a booster rocket attached to it called IBM". Well, IBM left the consumer market a long time ago, they certainly can't save MS now.

  23. Facetime by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think you're kidding yourself. People who use Facetime are not using Skype, people who surf on an iPad are not surfing on a PC, people who play games on the tablets are not playing games on Windows. For me my PC was mainly stock trading and email/messaging, that's now mainly on an Android tablet.

    You can claim that somehow Windows market is special, for 'real-work', but I use a Galaxy Note for most of my 'real work' and the PC is used only for its large screen when I happen to be in my office. When I've switched to an Infinity Pad, it won't even be the largest screen computer I have, at that point the charts will shown on the Android tablet and the PC will remain off.

    Oh, and I plan on buying a MTH (?) cable for the note so I can plug it into my TV and watch streaming TV in HD. I never bought a Windows Media PC, and now never will.

    Ballmer thinks he can grow Windows to take over the tablets, and Apple/Google believe they can grow tablets to take over Windows, two of those companies grew market share enormously quickly and one lost market share.

    You said this:
    "In America, at least, 99.9% of the people who own an Android phone or iPhone own at least one desktop PC, laptop, or both IN ADDITION to their phone."

    You can pretend the iPad is a complement to the PC, but they are both just general purpose computing devices that overlap. I bet they bought the iPad despite owning a PC. Not the PC despite owning an iPad.