Those are 80% margin... Where is all that money GOING? They should have had enough cash on hand to easily write down that $6b loss and had profit to spare.
People are starting to realize Microsoft is not MANAGED very well. Sure, they have buckets of money, but when you add up the metrics they are PISSING AWAY almost 50% of their GROSS margin on money-losing units. They have carefully shuffled their divisions so they each make 10-15% yearly but looking at even the public books they are hiding MASSIVE bleeding losses.
Add to that, that have run the CULTURE of the company into the ground. Micromanaging each unit under extreme "Decimation" principles. They are just coasting on their name to fill the mill with new grads. Average programmers with experience and some respect for themselves wont work there anymore. Their culture has more uncommon with game companies than Professional Business organizations they are trying to sell to.
Xbox is clearly winning on PLAY VALUE right now. While everybody HAS a Wii and it made Nintendo bank because they positioned it to be per-unit profitable, many homes have multiple Xbox 360s and have replaced them how many times? From profitability, it's abject failure because MS is having to sell homes MULTIPLE loss leader units. But from mindshare, Xbox 360 is what all the kids have and share with their friends, at least in the high school college group it's the default (if mommy and daddy aren't paying)
You have to weigh how the main MS cash cows are pulling in the $$$.
The Windows/server division is 80% wholesale margin. Office/automation is 80% margin. A product that is "only" in the black is an abject waste of resources unless it is going to position the company for another 10 years. Xbox is probably a Win! because they gained a good position. But the company can't SURVIVE on Xbox division profits with the way they are burning cash.
In comparison, Apple priced iPhone, and iPad from DAY ONE at price points where they would make their investments back if the product had even mild success. Apple doesn't enter a market unless they can figure out how they will get their money back.
Microsoft is still banging the drum of everything for free, until they can figure out where the money is at and corner those companies into big up front payments.
The whole problem is that Wall Street really doesn't reward companies that cash out that 80% margin to INVESTORS. Investors would rather see the company attempt to corner another market than take the cash in hand. That leads to Microsoft's managemt chasing every shiny car down the street, badly.
The best example is Growl. They were an open source project for notifications developers needed. They saw Apple building the App Store and buttoned ( and closed) up their project to be a "team player" for the Apple team. The whole saga of the App Store, then the Sandoxing, then Apple copying some of the features.
Now they're stuck in a place where they can release a version on the App Store but it is so narrow that it doesnt get many more features than the notifications built into Mtn lion. Non-app store apps can't use the app store version of Growl because Growl is sandboxed. The non-app store version of Growl can see the non-Sandbox apps, but can't be sent notifications from App Store apps. Basically BOTH versions of the App got knicked and there's nothing the Dev can do.
Because the Sandbox is including things Apple WANTS to do for itself. Things are added to the sandbox because Apple wants to KICK SOMEBODY OUT to eat their lunch, and not just technical reasons.
The problem is that Apple has not developed system wide functions to replace many of the things they are taking away... And for the things they are replacing, they are going for the heavy-handed iOS approach and locking devs down to only sharing specific Apple-approved file types. Basically having the computer act like a "system" is dead in favor of manual apps. The idea of using Apple Script to string your own custom workflow of little apps is right out the window.
Add insult to injury, Apple seems to be preemptively "Sherlock-ing" their most prosperous Mac Devs about one OS version BEFORE Apple copies them. now they are pulling apps and leaving USERS in the lurch without features they had yesterday.
Rather, OEMs are stuck in a race to the Bottom fueled by Microsoft and Intel themselves. If any OEM like say, Apple, gets a design too popular, One of those tries to make it "cheaper for everybody". It's right there in the OEM license agreements that Intel/Microsoft OEMS basically sign away any really unique ideas to the "herd".
Needless to say, there is no incentive for R&D, they just wait for intel and MS to tell them what to do. OEMs already tried innovating to make netbooks and both Intel and Microsoft teamed up to box the little PCs into a corner of uselessness. Ey COULD have been pushing what they're calling "ultra books" three-four years ago with limited set of functions.. Like win8. Ey even tried using Limix but got backstabbed there too.
If Google ported the Android environment to generic Linux instead of ChromeOS, they might have a shot. The ability to run phone and tablet apps on your old PC and share all the stuff from mobile App Stores would be the angle to play.
If Google would button up Chrome or throw behind Red Hat or Ubuntu brands they might gain something. Personally, Google should put together an Android environment that runs on a regular Linux in a sandbox. That way phone and tablet devs could port to that environment and media like Amazon could slip their media stuff (books, video, music, etc) in too. it would allow the normal distros to keep all the core Linux Desktop Apps in their repos too.
Of course it's everything the OSS gurus freak and dread, but without the ability to PARTICIPATE in online media commerce, Linux will always be "behind scenes". Win 8 and Mountain Lion are leaving a lot of good software and machines in the dust. The "Android " brand might be enough to get individual people to convert their XP to Linux... Linking with people's phones is a pretty good carrot.
You'll notice the only protect "guns" not the RIGHT to defend yourself. There are plenty of "arms" we are not allowed to carry: swords, daggers, stars, throwing knives, nun-chucks, batons and so on. Let alone all the "defensive" gear LE demonizes... Like how the recent shooting guy was basically dressed in proper required "paintball" gear... But they call it "tactical blah.."
Carrying a gun is the self defense mechanism with the least room for diplomacy, and least tolerance of accidents. You use other weapons, the assailant has to be in arms reach... And you dont put a bullet through somebody's house 500 feet away. The last few "self defense" cases have been people with guns using them after provoking fistfights... Basically guns are for bullies.
Except they are SUPPOSED to work until 70 now just to make Social Security work. The problem is that when we had pensions, we got used to people leaving WAY early. And companies were footing the bill. Companies have stopped flat pensions for 401k, and basically cut employees off from medical insurance when retire or they hit 65, even if they are still working.
Companies are pushing early retirement in record numbers to get employees ofv the books without being charged layoff fees, trying to prune off the top end while not hiring at the bottom. Most companies, even VERY PROFITABLE ones have been operating in "Decimation mode" my whole adult working career. We are reaching the point they are all about to implode because their own employees don't know the business. Eventually the Indians, Brazilians, and Chinese will pick up that knowledge... Expect another ten years though.
Of course if you'd let teachers curse, drink, whore, smoke on the job, you'd thin out the retirees some. Teachers work hard, but they don't typically have to pull the 60+ hour week/no lunch marches that other professional industries do.
Because they work with kids, we expect clean living. Because kids learn best in structured environments, with regular times, breaks,and lunches I allows teachers to be fairly healthy... Which sucks when they retire and help all those healthy habits and push 90 on a regular basis.
Like another poster said, teachers quality of life for their pay scale is fairly good. Their work hours, benefits, time off, lifestyle choices all reinforce the traditional American Dream.... Which is why business wants them OUT! Teachers are one of the last unions left holding on to the level of benefits and raises EVERYBODY expected from a good job 40 years ago... Can't have that, can we?
It's a new OS, why not rewrite the software. Seriously, guys that don't think the need to advance their programming forward are why Apple has been mopping up for years. Even BEFORE iOS Macs were pulling in more cash per user for $30 PAID software.
Where is money in XP? Really? Expecting somebody that's on an OS not sold on new PCs for 5 years to buy stuff. XP is left for Open Source and cheapskates now.
They keep making new 10 year-olds. That's the key to its success.
The more interesting research would be how many STILL play the game versus how many new kids join. Of course at this point the original KIDS that started playing the game in 1995 now have THEIR OWN kids and got those kids hooked.
But "arms" clearly means guns. The second amendment says nothing about any right to ACTUAL ARMS (or other forms of weapons, only 18th century GUNS). especially with fingers at the ends.
Its a good thing this court is in the USA. It's like another part of the SAME GOVERNMENT.
Courts don't take kindly to executive branch letters claiming the court cant be involved. My take is that this letter was petty enough, and not urgent, that the EFF thinks they have a shot at getting a judge to review it.
Microsoft sat on this bad investment for 5 years? They reaeased their first ever loss the quarter before the election.
I'm calling it now. In three weeks nobody will remember WHY Microsoft had a loss, just that in 2012 "Obama" had dragged the economy down so far, even MICROSOFT was effected! This will stand in the history books for decades.
You'll hear the rally for Republicans tomorrow morning... DEMOCRATS RUINED MICROSOFT! Count on it. Then queue renewed call for anti piracy measures, renewed call for cheaper workers... Blah, blah, blah.
The real problem is that with their margins, they STILL shouldn't BE ABLE to post a loss.
This is why people are starting to complain Microsoft is pissing away VAST amounts of money. Their main products, servers, OS, Office, are 80%+ gross profit. That accounts for a large portion of their income. So if those are half their income ($10B), how do they piss away $8 BILLION of gross profit in a year?!
That's the kind of numbers Balmer is mismanaging.
Steve Jobs took risks, but with all their riskiest products, Apple sold every UNIT at some kind of PROFIT. Apple kills products that dont make ENOUGH PROFIT. They don't sell ANYTHING as a loss leader.
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Those are 80% margin... Where is all that money GOING? They should have had enough cash on hand to easily write down that $6b loss and had profit to spare.
People are starting to realize Microsoft is not MANAGED very well. Sure, they have buckets of money, but when you add up the metrics they are PISSING AWAY almost 50% of their GROSS margin on money-losing units. They have carefully shuffled their divisions so they each make 10-15% yearly but looking at even the public books they are hiding MASSIVE bleeding losses.
Add to that, that have run the CULTURE of the company into the ground. Micromanaging each unit under extreme "Decimation" principles. They are just coasting on their name to fill the mill with new grads. Average programmers with experience and some respect for themselves wont work there anymore. Their culture has more uncommon with game companies than Professional Business organizations they are trying to sell to.
Xbox is clearly winning on PLAY VALUE right now. While everybody HAS a Wii and it made Nintendo bank because they positioned it to be per-unit profitable, many homes have multiple Xbox 360s and have replaced them how many times? From profitability, it's abject failure because MS is having to sell homes MULTIPLE loss leader units. But from mindshare, Xbox 360 is what all the kids have and share with their friends, at least in the high school college group it's the default (if mommy and daddy aren't paying)
You have to weigh how the main MS cash cows are pulling in the $$$.
The Windows/server division is 80% wholesale margin. Office/automation is 80% margin. A product that is "only" in the black is an abject waste of resources unless it is going to position the company for another 10 years. Xbox is probably a Win! because they gained a good position. But the company can't SURVIVE on Xbox division profits with the way they are burning cash.
In comparison, Apple priced iPhone, and iPad from DAY ONE at price points where they would make their investments back if the product had even mild success. Apple doesn't enter a market unless they can figure out how they will get their money back.
Microsoft is still banging the drum of everything for free, until they can figure out where the money is at and corner those companies into big up front payments.
The whole problem is that Wall Street really doesn't reward companies that cash out that 80% margin to INVESTORS. Investors would rather see the company attempt to corner another market than take the cash in hand. That leads to Microsoft's managemt chasing every shiny car down the street, badly.
The best example is Growl. They were an open source project for notifications developers needed. They saw Apple building the App Store and buttoned ( and closed) up their project to be a "team player" for the Apple team. The whole saga of the App Store, then the Sandoxing, then Apple copying some of the features.
Now they're stuck in a place where they can release a version on the App Store but it is so narrow that it doesnt get many more features than the notifications built into Mtn lion. Non-app store apps can't use the app store version of Growl because Growl is sandboxed. The non-app store version of Growl can see the non-Sandbox apps, but can't be sent notifications from App Store apps. Basically BOTH versions of the App got knicked and there's nothing the Dev can do.
Because the Sandbox is including things Apple WANTS to do for itself. Things are added to the sandbox because Apple wants to KICK SOMEBODY OUT to eat their lunch, and not just technical reasons.
The problem is that Apple has not developed system wide functions to replace many of the things they are taking away... And for the things they are replacing, they are going for the heavy-handed iOS approach and locking devs down to only sharing specific Apple-approved file types. Basically having the computer act like a "system" is dead in favor of manual apps. The idea of using Apple Script to string your own custom workflow of little apps is right out the window.
Add insult to injury, Apple seems to be preemptively "Sherlock-ing" their most prosperous Mac Devs about one OS version BEFORE Apple copies them. now they are pulling apps and leaving USERS in the lurch without features they had yesterday.
Rather, OEMs are stuck in a race to the Bottom fueled by Microsoft and Intel themselves. If any OEM like say, Apple, gets a design too popular, One of those tries to make it "cheaper for everybody". It's right there in the OEM license agreements that Intel/Microsoft OEMS basically sign away any really unique ideas to the "herd".
Needless to say, there is no incentive for R&D, they just wait for intel and MS to tell them what to do. OEMs already tried innovating to make netbooks and both Intel and Microsoft teamed up to box the little PCs into a corner of uselessness. Ey COULD have been pushing what they're calling "ultra books" three-four years ago with limited set of functions.. Like win8. Ey even tried using Limix but got backstabbed there too.
If Google ported the Android environment to generic Linux instead of ChromeOS, they might have a shot. The ability to run phone and tablet apps on your old PC and share all the stuff from mobile App Stores would be the angle to play.
If Google would button up Chrome or throw behind Red Hat or Ubuntu brands they might gain something. Personally, Google should put together an Android environment that runs on a regular Linux in a sandbox. That way phone and tablet devs could port to that environment and media like Amazon could slip their media stuff (books, video, music, etc) in too. it would allow the normal distros to keep all the core Linux Desktop Apps in their repos too.
Of course it's everything the OSS gurus freak and dread, but without the ability to PARTICIPATE in online media commerce, Linux will always be "behind scenes". Win 8 and Mountain Lion are leaving a lot of good software and machines in the dust. The "Android " brand might be enough to get individual people to convert their XP to Linux... Linking with people's phones is a pretty good carrot.
You'll notice the only protect "guns" not the RIGHT to defend yourself. There are plenty of "arms" we are not allowed to carry: swords, daggers, stars, throwing knives, nun-chucks, batons and so on. Let alone all the "defensive" gear LE demonizes... Like how the recent shooting guy was basically dressed in proper required "paintball" gear... But they call it "tactical blah.."
Carrying a gun is the self defense mechanism with the least room for diplomacy, and least tolerance of accidents. You use other weapons, the assailant has to be in arms reach... And you dont put a bullet through somebody's house 500 feet away. The last few "self defense" cases have been people with guns using them after provoking fistfights... Basically guns are for bullies.
Except they are SUPPOSED to work until 70 now just to make Social Security work. The problem is that when we had pensions, we got used to people leaving WAY early. And companies were footing the bill. Companies have stopped flat pensions for 401k, and basically cut employees off from medical insurance when retire or they hit 65, even if they are still working.
Companies are pushing early retirement in record numbers to get employees ofv the books without being charged layoff fees, trying to prune off the top end while not hiring at the bottom. Most companies, even VERY PROFITABLE ones have been operating in "Decimation mode" my whole adult working career. We are reaching the point they are all about to implode because their own employees don't know the business. Eventually the Indians, Brazilians, and Chinese will pick up that knowledge... Expect another ten years though.
Of course if you'd let teachers curse, drink, whore, smoke on the job, you'd thin out the retirees some. Teachers work hard, but they don't typically have to pull the 60+ hour week/no lunch marches that other professional industries do.
Because they work with kids, we expect clean living. Because kids learn best in structured environments, with regular times, breaks,and lunches I allows teachers to be fairly healthy... Which sucks when they retire and help all those healthy habits and push 90 on a regular basis.
Like another poster said, teachers quality of life for their pay scale is fairly good. Their work hours, benefits, time off, lifestyle choices all reinforce the traditional American Dream.... Which is why business wants them OUT! Teachers are one of the last unions left holding on to the level of benefits and raises EVERYBODY expected from a good job 40 years ago... Can't have that, can we?
It's a new OS, why not rewrite the software. Seriously, guys that don't think the need to advance their programming forward are why Apple has been mopping up for years. Even BEFORE iOS Macs were pulling in more cash per user for $30 PAID software.
Where is money in XP? Really? Expecting somebody that's on an OS not sold on new PCs for 5 years to buy stuff. XP is left for Open Source and cheapskates now.
The cover was obviously "inspired" by some good customers. Obviously whoever did the cover had lots of "inspiration" (empty JD Bottles) available.
Unlike the **aa organizations, they understand they are an inspiration, but have to remind folks that get too inspired by their trademark.
They totally deserve that? Why would you sign up for a "Black Hat" event with an important account? The trusting fools!
They keep making new 10 year-olds. That's the key to its success.
The more interesting research would be how many STILL play the game versus how many new kids join. Of course at this point the original KIDS that started playing the game in 1995 now have THEIR OWN kids and got those kids hooked.
But "arms" clearly means guns. The second amendment says nothing about any right to ACTUAL ARMS (or other forms of weapons, only 18th century GUNS). especially with fingers at the ends.
What good will guns be when they take away hands?
Considering the incident occurred at the midnight showing, what they hell did the other reviewers watch?
The shooter was just looking for pirates. AM radio told him to do it.
You know how much the MPAA trusts their customers!
The MPAA might send in somebody to shoot you during the movie!
Its a good thing this court is in the USA. It's like another part of the SAME GOVERNMENT.
Courts don't take kindly to executive branch letters claiming the court cant be involved. My take is that this letter was petty enough, and not urgent, that the EFF thinks they have a shot at getting a judge to review it.
This will also help Ballmer say Windows 8 "saved the company" with their first profitable quarter after terrible, terrible losses.
It's all marketing.
I'm breaking out the tin foil here.
Microsoft sat on this bad investment for 5 years? They reaeased their first ever loss the quarter before the election.
I'm calling it now. In three weeks nobody will remember WHY Microsoft had a loss, just that in 2012 "Obama" had dragged the economy down so far, even MICROSOFT was effected! This will stand in the history books for decades.
You'll hear the rally for Republicans tomorrow morning... DEMOCRATS RUINED MICROSOFT! Count on it. Then queue renewed call for anti piracy measures, renewed call for cheaper workers... Blah, blah, blah.
Thoughts?
The real problem is that with their margins, they STILL shouldn't BE ABLE to post a loss.
This is why people are starting to complain Microsoft is pissing away VAST amounts of money. Their main products, servers, OS, Office, are 80%+ gross profit. That accounts for a large portion of their income. So if those are half their income ($10B), how do they piss away $8 BILLION of gross profit in a year?!
That's the kind of numbers Balmer is mismanaging.
Steve Jobs took risks, but with all their riskiest products, Apple sold every UNIT at some kind of PROFIT. Apple kills products that dont make ENOUGH PROFIT. They don't sell ANYTHING as a loss leader.
What are you going to write on? Baby Seal skin would be good, after you get off all the fur.