It was a true net operating profit helped largely (and readily admitted by Amazon) by a favorable swing in the euro exchange rate. They expected a pro-forma profit and delivered a bonus profit.
Do you actually know what a pro forma profit is and why people use it? GAAP accounting forces you to account for non-cash charges like the amortization of goodwill.
For example, Amazon bought PlanetAll in 1998 for $250MM. How much money left their bank account? $0. It was paid for in stock, how much stock did Amazon buy on the market and transfer to PlanetAll? $0. They issued new stock that was authorized (and which the market, if it prices based on perfect public info) should factor in to some extent. Now they have to amortize that cost over time. But it wasn't a real $$ cost. So if you're looking at the operating performance of the business and you're trying to decide whether you should invest based on on-going normal operations you shouldn't (debateable of course) look at non-cash charges. Thus you look at Pro-Forma Operating profit.
Oh, and yes, the currency swing is also excluded from pro-forma profitability because it is a non-recurring cost (gain)
since MSN isn't a separate corporate entity, and Microsoft IS a monopoly (that is not debatable- it is a finding of law), by definition MSN benefits from monopoly power.
Since a basic provision of anti-trust law is to prohibt tying of products (with the intent of increasing profit or extending marketshare), tying the browser to MSN access is entirely monopolistic.
People like Dell and HP hope that Microsoft will get XP out ASAP. They hope that it's increased demand on memory and CPU will force people to buy new PCs. They are more worried about their income now, than about the restriction Microsoft was putting on OEMs.
Hello trees, where's the forest?
If Microsoft wasn't a monopolist, then maybe there would be more innovation in the PC Market, which would maybe create an environment where PCs aren't a commodity. Maybe not. Its a commodity business and their relentless price cutting as the predominant marketing mechanism has brought them to this point. This is why there are anti-monopoly laws- because while in short run they can be beneficial, over the long run they damage the tenets of a free-market economy.
But beyond all that, who cares whether people WANT the federal courts to lay off of Microsoft because the economy. Are they any less rule breakers because we're in a recession. We have a government that separates the judicial branch for expressly the purpose of not caving in to popular opinion. The judicial branch doesn't get to make the laws, they only get to rule on them. Congress gets to make laws but doesn't get to decide their enforceability.
Finally recession was more likely caused by factors more related to the tech market upswing than its downfall. Rising wages and overspending by consumers are likely to cause significant inflation. Since the Fed is heavily concerned with reducing inflationary tendencies it raised interest rates in an attempt to slow down spending and investment (interest rates on credit cards go up and the cost of capital for corporate investment increases). This causes the economy to slow its expansion- slow the expansion too much and it can actually reverse and cause a rapid contraction. Consumer spending falters, business cut costs, etc.
Or maybe the entire economy really is tethered to the Nasdaq.
WWDC is not a trade show. World Wide Developer Conference. They tend to show off things coming down the pipeline so Mac developers can keep ahead of them.
right- the point is- here's a real machine, not a rumor- now start building your apps to take advantage of multiple threads
Well the facts of this deal are $150MM investment in Apple preferred for an agreement which included MSFT Office for the Mac support for 5 years the rumor of the deal was that Apple had new material that would potentially support a reopening of the infamous look & feel case the cynical view of the deal was that by keeping Apple alive, MSFT avoided monopoly suit (wow- that really worked) I have a hard time believing that MSFT was forthcoming enough to admit that OS X could displace windows on to the x86 OS future- my personal belief is its a migration strategy for corporations- get them to convert OS 1st and the boxes will follow. As long as you can maintain a superior performance level on PPC (think Altivec aka Velocity Engine), you can migrate people over time with lower upfront cost than the full box upgrade plus, think of all that they learn while they try to get the thing working on x86 crap
Slashdot Mirror
Ummmm... nope.
It was a true net operating profit helped largely (and readily admitted by Amazon) by a favorable swing in the euro exchange rate. They expected a pro-forma profit and delivered a bonus profit.
Do you actually know what a pro forma profit is and why people use it? GAAP accounting forces you to account for non-cash charges like the amortization of goodwill.
For example, Amazon bought PlanetAll in 1998 for $250MM. How much money left their bank account? $0. It was paid for in stock, how much stock did Amazon buy on the market and transfer to PlanetAll? $0. They issued new stock that was authorized (and which the market, if it prices based on perfect public info) should factor in to some extent. Now they have to amortize that cost over time. But it wasn't a real $$ cost. So if you're looking at the operating performance of the business and you're trying to decide whether you should invest based on on-going normal operations you shouldn't (debateable of course) look at non-cash charges. Thus you look at Pro-Forma Operating profit.
Oh, and yes, the currency swing is also excluded from pro-forma profitability because it is a non-recurring cost (gain)
hmm-- I won't spend too much time on the reply
since MSN isn't a separate corporate entity, and Microsoft IS a monopoly (that is not debatable- it is a finding of law), by definition MSN benefits from monopoly power.
Since a basic provision of anti-trust law is to prohibt tying of products (with the intent of increasing profit or extending marketshare), tying the browser to MSN access is entirely monopolistic.
People like Dell and HP hope that Microsoft will get XP out ASAP. They hope that it's increased demand on memory and CPU will force people to buy new PCs. They are more worried about their income now, than about the restriction Microsoft was putting on OEMs.
Hello trees, where's the forest?
If Microsoft wasn't a monopolist, then maybe there would be more innovation in the PC Market, which would maybe create an environment where PCs aren't a commodity. Maybe not. Its a commodity business and their relentless price cutting as the predominant marketing mechanism has brought them to this point. This is why there are anti-monopoly laws- because while in short run they can be beneficial, over the long run they damage the tenets of a free-market economy.
But beyond all that, who cares whether people WANT the federal courts to lay off of Microsoft because the economy. Are they any less rule breakers because we're in a recession. We have a government that separates the judicial branch for expressly the purpose of not caving in to popular opinion. The judicial branch doesn't get to make the laws, they only get to rule on them. Congress gets to make laws but doesn't get to decide their enforceability.
Finally recession was more likely caused by factors more related to the tech market upswing than its downfall. Rising wages and overspending by consumers are likely to cause significant inflation. Since the Fed is heavily concerned with reducing inflationary tendencies it raised interest rates in an attempt to slow down spending and investment (interest rates on credit cards go up and the cost of capital for corporate investment increases). This causes the economy to slow its expansion- slow the expansion too much and it can actually reverse and cause a rapid contraction. Consumer spending falters, business cut costs, etc.
Or maybe the entire economy really is tethered to the Nasdaq.
WWDC is not a trade show. World Wide Developer Conference. They tend to show off things coming down the pipeline so Mac developers can keep ahead of them.
right- the point is- here's a real machine, not a rumor- now start building your apps to take advantage of multiple threadsWell the facts of this deal are $150MM investment in Apple preferred for an agreement which included MSFT Office for the Mac support for 5 years the rumor of the deal was that Apple had new material that would potentially support a reopening of the infamous look & feel case the cynical view of the deal was that by keeping Apple alive, MSFT avoided monopoly suit (wow- that really worked) I have a hard time believing that MSFT was forthcoming enough to admit that OS X could displace windows on to the x86 OS future- my personal belief is its a migration strategy for corporations- get them to convert OS 1st and the boxes will follow. As long as you can maintain a superior performance level on PPC (think Altivec aka Velocity Engine), you can migrate people over time with lower upfront cost than the full box upgrade plus, think of all that they learn while they try to get the thing working on x86 crap