Microsoft Reports Record Revenue

jones_supa sends this AFP report: "Microsoft soared to record revenues in the last quarter, confounding Wall Street forecasts on the back of strong demand for Xbox consoles, Surface tablets and Internet cloud services. The U.S.-based technology titan reported net income of $6.56 billion on revenue that hit a record high of $24.52 billion in the quarter that ended December 31. ... Sales of Surface tablets more than doubled from the previous quarter to hit $893 million, and Microsoft sold 7.4 million Xbox videogame consoles, with 3.9 million of those being new-generation Xbox One. Bing's share of the Internet search market grew to 18.2 percent while its share of the online search ad market grew about a third, according to Microsoft. Meanwhile, money made from selling Windows software to computer makers slid by three percent due to continue soft demand by consumers for personal computers, according to Microsoft."

Comments

Strategy?

[nashv]

That billion dollar write-off on the Surface tablets doesn't seem so bad now does it...

Surface in the Enterprise

[Sir_Eptishous]

We have recently purchased a Surface to test with some LIMS software we use, which currently runs fine on W7. We were told it wouldn't run on 8. It has been discovered that it does in fact run on 8 and runs fine on our Surface. We are going to to test using Surface tablets running 8.1 in our environment. So far so good.

Are we running this on iPads or Android tablets? No.
Why?
Because the software in question, along with pretty much everything else we use is designed to run on either Windows or Linux.

I could draw a conclusion here that Surface tablets will make in roads into the Enterprise for exactly this reason. Yes, yes, I know there are thousands of iPads in Enterprises right now, with all manner of executive and administrative staffers trying to look important at work with their tablet, while busily updating their FB status. However, I feel that because of MS's entrenched position in the Enterprise the Surface is more of a "work" device than an iPad or Android tablet.