Strong sales of new and old products alike led Microsoft to its fastest first-quarter growth in eight years, with the company reporting growth in all five business segments and both revenue and earnings per share that beat analyst expectations. Revenue for the fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30 was up 27 percent at USD 13.76 billion compared to USD 10.81 billion a year ago, Microsoft said Thursday. Consensus estimates from Thomson First Call analysts were for the company to generate revenue of USD 12.57 billion. Microsoft’s EPS for the quarter was USD 0.45, which also soundly beat Thomson First Call consensus estimate of USD 0.39. Net income for the quarter was USD 4.29 billion, a 23 percent increase over the USD 3.48 billion reported a year ago. At USD 5.92 billion, operating income for the quarter also had double-digit percentage growth: an increase of more than 25 percent over operating income reported for the same period last year of USD 4.47 billion.
The open source zealots will come out in force claiming those numbers can’t be correct…they’re published by Microsoft…so they must be all lies.
The open source zealots will come out in force claiming those numbers can’t be correct…they’re published by Microsoft…so they must be all lies.
While I am sure there will be plenty of people unhappy with this announcement, I think this kind of comment is more appropriate for someplace like slashdot or digg. Don’t take the voting down as an anti-Microsoft sentiment, I own a number of shares in Microsoft and this announcement just made me a decent chunk of change on the stock market and I’m one of the few people that really likes Vista. I just like the idea of OSNews being slightly less full of these kind of comments then the rest.
While I am sure there will be plenty of people unhappy with this announcement, I think this kind of comment is more appropriate for someplace like slashdot or digg. Don’t take the voting down as an anti-Microsoft sentiment, I own a number of shares in Microsoft and this announcement just made me a decent chunk of change on the stock market and I’m one of the few people that really likes Vista. I just like the idea of OSNews being slightly less full of these kind of comments then the rest.
I agree with your sentiment for the most part.
My comment is a reflection of how sick I am with the anti-MS that has infested this and other sites making it almost impossible to have a sane discussion on anything regarding MS.
The #’s posted by MS in this latest quarter refute most the ‘noise’ posted on the linux-losing-market-to-windows’ thread that made that thread so unreadable.
“The #’s posted by MS in this latest quarter refute most the ‘noise’ posted on the linux-losing-market-to-windows’ thread that made that thread so unreadable.”
On the Desktop Microsoft is losing Market share to *everyone* unfortunately in figures that make little difference to Revenue.
When you’re at 90+ percent market share…there are 2 ways to go, steady or down.
“When you’re at 90+ percent market share…there are 2 ways to go, steady or down.”
Or you make revenue by different markets, like they are trying with zune, and xbox, for content creation. This is ignoring all the sidelines of little things like condecs for HD.
Or the move from piracy to ligitermate copies of their OS.
Or the fact that the computing market is still expanding.
etc etc.
Welcome to my world, as I feel the same way about this site with regard to the anti-Linux bashing.
Bottom line of this news from further 10k analysis – Microsoft profits are up because of a successful game release (halo 3). Vista and Server 2003 sales remained flat.
“Welcome to my world, as I feel the same way about this site with regard to the anti-Linux bashing.
Bottom line of this news from further 10k analysis – Microsoft profits are up because of a successful game release (halo 3). Vista and Server 2003 sales remained flat.”
many companies due to how they pay for the OS can install Vista, but may have not done…and the migration from their product offerings have not been large enough to hurt there bottom line.
The Xbox has made a massive loss overall and Zune too, you have to remember that $300 million is nothing compared to $60Billion although I’m sure it has helped this quarter.
Vista and Server 2003 sales remained flat
That doesn’t jive with the article contents claiming “Strong performances from Microsoft’s client, business, sever and tools and online divisions also contributed to revenue growth in the quarter. In particular, Microsoft said sales of its Windows Vista OS experienced double-digit growth through multi-year business contracts, and demand for Microsoft Office, Windows Server and SQL Server was also high.”
The 10k is the source, not an article written by a reporter who gets a paycheck from advertising paid for by Microsoft.
I stand by the statement. Vista and Server 2003 sales remain flat. (that is to say, sales of Vista and Server 2003 do not explain the Qtr earnings improvement)
I stand by the statement. Vista and Server 2003 sales remain flat.
Microsoft also published Balance Sheet and Operating Income by segment. Sales of client and server segments are not flat.
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY08/earn_rel_q1_08.mspx
Get the facts.
If I have a choice to buy a Vista Basic for $99 and Vista Ultimate for $400, I will buy the latter. Either way, I make one sale (flat), but revenue increases.
An increase in revenue does not increase rates of adoption.
I got the facts.
perhaps you could get a clue. =)
I stand by the statement. Vista and Server 2003 sales remain flat. (that is to say, sales of Vista and Server 2003 do not explain the Qtr earnings improvement)
From marketwatch.com:
“Microsoft’s client unit, which includes the Vista operating system released to consumers in January, posted $4.1 billion in revenue for the quarter. That’s a 24% increase from the same period a year earlier.”
Companies would be falling all over themselves if ‘flat’ meant a 24% sales increase.
This history of anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux comments around this place shows that this is impossible.
This history of anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux comments around this place shows that this is impossible.
Are you forgetting the history of anti-Linux, pro-Microsoft comments “around this place”? Bias? What bias?
There are issues long term, here are my ‘things’ I’m thinking about:
1) Microsoft has a monopoly in the desktop OS space, and Office – large numbers of corporations are not only dependent on software but locked in by virtue that any move to an alternative would be prohibitively expensive.
Microsoft right now is basically like a power, telecom or water company. It is expected that they can turn “super normal profits” (economic term) when there are the elements mentioned.
I’m not saying that the profits aren’t great, but at the same time, they should be expected as part of their position in the market place. That is why there has been very little movement in the share price vs. Apple who is in a constant upward battle.
2) The importance of the operating system will diminish in the future which brings to light the future profits of the company. Not next year but in 5-10 years time; when the requirement moves from being that of a certain operating system to that of bandwidth will Microsoft be placed in a good position to take advantage of that transition to service based software?
3) I personally don’t like Windows Vista, but I won’t stop someone from purchasing it – its their choice. The problem I have is when Microsoft tells me the customer that for them to win, I as a Mac customer have to lose. Microsoft need to quickly drop their nepoleonic complex pronto because it rubs me and many users the wrong way. Sure, provide upgrades, entice us with great deals, but don’t ram it down our collective throats.
I think this kind of comment is more appropriate for someplace like slashdot or digg. Don’t take the voting down as an anti-Microsoft sentiment, I own a number of shares in Microsoft and this announcement just made me a decent chunk of change on the stock market and I’m one of the few people that really likes Vista.
Well, that just about tells us all we need to know, doesn’t it?
Microsoft is a joke. Sure they had a good quarter, but their shares are worthless. I did a quick google for General Motors and they have $1.50 to $2.50 on a BAD year when they have to cut staff. The generally pay more DIVIDENDS per share than that! IBM is $1.68 EPS with 30 cents dividend. Microsoft may have MONEY but they are not making INVESTORS money. They’re a pump-n-dump if they don’t pay dividends after 30 years as they have Billions in the bank that belongs to stockholders.
Such low EPS means Steve keeps the money for his personal office chair replacement fund. Microsoft investors make their money from other investors wanting to get in … not from Microsoft PROFITS, there’s not enough of those to go around at 45 cents per share. The excuse that they’re a tech company really doesn’t float anymore.
Where OSS advocates should be pointing is who gets the 85% profit margin and where does it go? Investors are being taken for a ride because they don’t get the money. Microsoft is using the cash to expand for it’s own sake not for PROFIT to it’s investors… that’s the point of business. Making investors money thru your stock price going up is silly, it’s not like Microsoft will be sold to anybody for a big profit like a small startup, and they’re not paying dividends, so it’s all monopoly money. OSS advocates should be pointing to investors to take some profit for their wallets. Microsoft’s investors could put more money in their pockets if they made Bill and Steve play by normal business rules and get Microsoft making Linux tools… something Microsoft is very good at, with high profits.
Apart from the term zealot being offensive.
Is the massive money making of Microsoft of benefit to the quality of your particular OS or not. Nobody is denying Microsoft’s ability to make *massive* amounts of money. I’m glad you think that benefits *you*.
The only real shame here is that *even* after Vista being shunned by *everyone*, due to the artificial inflating of prices through crippling versions of their OS. Forcing customers to by multiple versions of the same product.
Now as a Vista user you should perhaps say an exiting new interface on their office Offerings, new products in home server, and some profits in the money drain that is there gaming division, had done well for Microsoft…and I’m no doubt it has.
The fun thing with the “in your face” comments is my *free* alternatives are looking even better value in terms of Microsoft’s inelastic inflation. You are actually celebrating paying more for subsequent offering of the same thing.
It’s tough going out there for businesses right now. However, it’s not all bad news. The oil companies are doing phenomenal. So are the health insurance companies. And while Microsoft might not be growing exponentially anymore, they consistently make well over 33% profit off revenues in the area of $1B per week, and they did even better this past quarter.
There’s no doubt about it, these are all potent money-making machines. What they have in common is a product that everybody uses and couldn’t imagine living without, no matter how expensive it gets or how abusive the product becomes. Often it isn’t possible to get by without driving 30+ miles to work, taking a large chunk of compensation in the form of health insurance, and using Windows software.
What people don’t seem to realize is that when these kinds of companies do well, they do so at the expense of their customers. They aren’t bound by supply and demand. They’re only bound by their operating expenses and the limit to how much they can exploit their customers before they face Congressional hearings and class-action lawsuits.
They trade on the market, but in practice they are only accountable to governments. Because while the governments, in response to public outrage, investigate the business practices of these corporations, the public can’t stop driving their cars, taking their drugs, and being compatible with the Windows ecosystem.
The problem is that in this new era of globalization, big corporations have gone transnational, and most governments can do little to stop them, because the scope of their existence goes beyond the borders of any country.
If the american governament had split up ms into several companies like they were talking about doing, back in the anti-trust litigation days, the intel based pc OS market would have corrected itself years ago. As it stands, I dont see it happening any time soon. No one product of MS really needs to turn a profit, they have so much money that they can give their various offerings the time they need to become competitive. Vista was a flop? I’m sure they care, but I doubt anyone is worried about the future of the company. Their revenue is enough to spend another 5 years fixing it if they need to. The Zune is a joke? Maybe it is now, but after a few years of revisions and building up a client base, I could definitely see it being serious iPod competition. MS office used to just be an office suite, but now it is at the point where it is hard to imagine doing business without it (completely IGNORING outlook and exchange. I know you are a Linux guy, but take a real good look at The Groove or OneNote from 2k7. I have only been using them for a year, but the Groove has quickly become a part of how my small business works, and OneNote has become part of how i think.)
MS has the capital, manpower, and brainshare to turn new ventures into successes through pure brute force, and they are not scared to leverage it.
Vista is not the same as XP. XP is not the same as 2000. 2000 is not the same as 98. 98 is not the same as 3.11.
My IT shop on campus has computer labs. These labs are PCs with XP. We have several las with a line of computers with Vista installed. We have suggestion boxes with forms on them asking what the students think before we even consider campus deployment.
Linux and OS X are gaining acceptance regardless of the profits Microsoft reports. It doesn’t take a zealot to figure out that Microsoft is the new IBM of old. It will do anything for attention.
Well it’s good that you beat them to starting the seemingly mandatory troll thread. Congrats!
Sometimes I just think those “open source zealots” only exist because of Microsoft zealots like you, who start a conversation with a line like the above.
I’ve got no particular beef with Microsoft, but you’d think they’d be able to take all this money and give us an operating system *significantly* better than OS X and Ubuntu — yet, Window’s greatest strengths are not in the OS but in the 3rd party ecosystem compatibility. Well, whoop-de-doo, we could have that with Linux, were it simply in the same business position. Vista is not worth the price they’re asking if that represents the best roadmap they can derive from our payment. They simply benefit from having gotten in the right place at the right time, and while I give a nod to Bill and company for that, their practice of milking that position for these insanely wide margins and not delivering on giving us a product that reciprocates their profits, well, why do they deserve our loyalty as customers?
Edited 2007-10-26 19:06
Window’s greatest strengths are not in the OS but in the 3rd party ecosystem compatibility. Well, whoop-de-doo, we could have that with Linux, were it simply in the same business position
‘whoop-de-doo’ ‘we could have that with Linux’
Yeah, sure you ‘could’.
It’s so simple to do that it’s not worthy of any other enterprise, private or open source, to replicate a feat that rewards with trillions of dollars every quarter LOL
So do you feel that Vista, in comparison to Linux or the *BSDs, is a fair representation of what can be accomplished with billions and billions of dollars, as opposed to the millions that gets pumped into Linux and the pittance that goes towards BSD development?
So do you feel that Vista, in comparison to Linux or the *BSDs, is a fair representation of what can be accomplished with billions and billions of dollars, as opposed to the millions that gets pumped into Linux and the pittance that goes towards BSD development?
More money doesn’t equate to a better product. Some of the best stuff ever created came out of a garage with 2 guys hunkered down pulling long nights.
And it’s hard to put a dollar value on the effort that went into the Linux of today, considering the volunteer nature of it’s development model.
But I will say the Linux effort today does represent something in the billions…not a laughable millions as you think.
So in the end…what’s your point?
At the end of the day…hard fast number reported by MS yesterday show people want Vista, MS products, and products that run on MS products.
Edited 2007-10-26 19:22
My point is that I don’t understand why anyone should be glad about MS extracting so much money for their OS, when it doesn’t take that much money to make a comparable product. I wish MS could deliver a product worthy of the amount of money they’re making off it. I guess I care more about the technology side of the argument, where it sounds like you care more about the monetary side. Heck, I enjoy money too, but it’s not like I just raked in billions of dollars, whereas with say, BSD, I can participate in the innovation and discovery, so that *is* of value to me. MS making money … great for them, but what’s so great about it for us, other than just idol worship?
Edited 2007-10-26 19:33
My point is that I understand why anyone should care about MS extracting so much money for their OS development, when it doesn’t take that much money to make a comparable product. I wish MS could deliver a product worthy of the amount of money they’re making off it.
You have no proof that ‘it doesn’t take that much money to make a comparable product’. If all those Linux volunteers were paid a livable wage for their time, add in the unknown costs from the efforts of IBM, Red Hat and all the rest…I bet you would be surprised to know the real dollar amount to bring Linux to where it is today.
Also, ‘comparable’ is an opinion. In my *opinion* there is no other comparable product to something like Vista except for OS X, which is my favourite OS.
I think the Linux desktop experiences suck…UI’s like KDE, GNOME and distros like Ubuntu are laughable and horrible…in my *opinion*. But if somebody else likes them…that’s great.
But it would appear that most of the user space agrees with me as bore out by the #’s that MS is reporting.
Edited 2007-10-26 19:39
So you think Vista represents the best Microsoft, with its army of engineers getting a real, stable pay, with central management, can accomplish with billions of real dollars, as opposed to the dispersed development of BSD or Linux, not getting paid what their product is truly worth?
See, to me it just seems like MS is a company making tons of money, but not putting a fairly proportionate amount of money back into their product in an *efficient* manner. It just gets lost in the bureaucracy or goes into the pockets of a small cadre of fat rich old fogies who could give a rats a$$ about you, me, or anything that doesn’t make them even more money. Well, yay for them, lol.
Edited 2007-10-26 19:45
I’m not sure I understand your question. If Vista is giving people what they want, then I would answer ‘Yes’.
At the moment, though, I think the best offering from ‘billions of dollars with paid engineers and central management’, as you say, is OS X with Vista a close second.
Vista has been nothing but trouble for the company I work at … we had no reason to upgrade to it either, other than if we chose to upgrade now, we got a discount, than if we chose to upgrade later. And it’s inevitable that we upgrade because we have too much built on top of the Win32 api, and we need the security updates, which will eventually be discontinued with XP. So why not get the discount?
However, we’re migrating all of our software to the Eclipse rich client platform so that one of these days, we can truly make an independent decision on what OS we want. For the near future, however, we’re married to MS and knew we would be for at least a few product upgrades. I figure most other companies are in the boat. It’s all about the lock-in.
Also, my family doesn’t really like Vista. We turned off the enhanced graphics so that it ran at XP speeds. It doesn’t play the games the kids enjoy the most. The new printer didn’t work with it. But it came with the new computer, and we didn’t have a choice to get XP instead. Yet MS can rack that up for the Wall Street numbers as another “satisfied” customer who got what they wanted, even though I wiped it and installed XP because Vista didn’t do anything new that we needed, but 100% couldn’t do what we DID need. It makes me upset to think that I supported Windows development with my wallet to end up with this lackluster result.
Not to mention, when I have to go out and buy a copyof XP to replace the Vista install, MS has made two sales as a result of having a bad product. This angers me enough that I’ll be switching to Ubuntu once Wine is able to run the kids’ games. Unfortunately, Ubuntu doesn’t have the marketing budget of MS so that more people even know about this option. It’s kind of the same situation that keeps decent 3rd party candidates from winning the White House in the US.
Edited 2007-10-26 20:07
I like that response. THAT is the response OSS should be sending… Microsoft made that much money and sold Vista? It’s dumb luck and boatloads of cash, not valid business sense holding them together. Apple sells only 8% of the market and releases Leopard which seems to be fairly solid on my machine so far. Linux offers up their product for free and makes profit off services and hardware sales. Microsoft gets profit from pure sales and OEM contracts set in stone… and their product delivery is lacking… at least the OS. Xbox has lost boatloads of money but seems to have better service and results, but as it grows the windows ethic of patch, patch seems to be creeping in.
Many businesses by only Microsoft because Bill Gates was the richest guy around… a while ago. His company is not delivering like a world class company should, by a long shot. Their OS purchases should reflect that but don’t due to inertia of buying what they already got because Microsoft has beat up customers with bad releases they think all software is that way.
I don’t suppose you’re a stockholder? lol … You should then preface your comments with a disclaimer if that’s the case 😉
As of today, I *wish* I was a stockholder LOL
>>As of today, I *wish* I was a stockholder LOL<<
Why?
Compare a five year chart of msft, google, redhat, and apple. Msft makes gobs of money, but msft is like a utility company, the stock hasn’t gone anywhere in six years. The latest news may cause a spike, but it won’t last.
They have.
.. Who’s “they”?
– Gilboa
They = Microsoft, keeping pronoun agreement with the person I quoted.
OK.
I can’t that I agree (and I’m neither an Ubuntu and/or OSX fan), but I understand what you meant.
Thanks for the clarification,
– Gilboa
I’ve got no particular beef with Microsoft, but you’d think they’d be able to take all this money and give us an operating system *significantly* better than OS X and Ubuntu
[i]They have.
Please, don’t make us laugh.
Why should they?! Microsoft making profit have nothing to do with open source. with the high price of Vista and a new Office suit they have forced their users to empty their wallets big time, so why shouldn’t Microsoft be do well. A rich Microsoft with poor customers will work in favor of FOSS.
you said it not me…
That’s all I have to say – ’nuff sed !
It works like this:
1.- A topic remark MS monetary success
2.- if the source of the news is not reliable the news is discarted as wrong = troll win.
3.- if the source is reliable then say that is due its Monoply position bla bla bla, mod points +10.
4.- some coherent objective comment mode points – 5.
If troll mod points > coherent and objetive mod points = troll victory and the sensation of have changed the world and have distroyed MS(ha ha ha).
Tipical OSNEWS.
Edited 2007-10-26 16:10
that’s pure logic,
they make the most money with their operating systems. They sell their last operating system in 2001 (that’s nearly 8 years) – and they are selling a new office at the same time.
So of course they have good results. But that’s nothing special.
they make the most money with their operating systems. They sell their last operating system in 2001 (that’s nearly 8 years) – and they are selling a new office at the same time.
So of course they have good results.
Huh? Why does it necessarily follow that new product introduction equates to great results on the street?
Fact is, MS is doing great and the usual contingent can’t stand the thought of it…mostly for political reasons.
Those in user space don’t have to apologize to the open source geeks cuz they can’t rebuild a kernel every time they want to install a new font.
Common sense anyone?
The market for upgrades (installed base) at 90% market saturation far excedes the OEM sales potential. Take into account that the installed base will upgrade when a new releast comes out, while your OEM sales base is still going in full force, and you have no where to go but exponentially UP in sales.
This is exactly why MicroSoft wants to sell you software as a service, to realize revenue from the release of products over time, rather than a lump-sum at the beginning of a product release thanks to the upgrade cycle.
Fact is, this is how economics, human behavior, and the tech market have proven themselves to work for the last 20 years. Did MicroSoft do well this quarter? Yes. But it’s a direct correlation to the fact that they released new versions of software that’s in high demand.
This is what software companies are supposed to do. The thing that makes this quarter so striking is that MicroSoft failed to deliver concurrent updates to their two main products for nearly 8 years. Delivering a double-whammy so late in the game means that there’s huge installed bases looking for upgrades, and there’s also the people who’ve been holding out for new PC’s until the new products were released.
Don’t expect numbers like this to last, they’ll stabilize over the coming quarters, just like it does after every other major software release.
If you’ve half a brain, you’ll take a bit of profit on some of that stock that’s surging in the wake of this news of unsustainable revenues, wait a few weeks for the price to settle, and reinvest.
But it’s a direct correlation to the fact that they released new versions of software that’s in high demand.
Exactly, the key words being ‘in high demand’.
I’m sure the likes of SUN, SCOUnix and others introduce new releases all the time yet it doesn’t make much difference to their bottom lines.
Meanwhile, MS is exhibiting growth.
Anyway, I thought the introduction of Vista was a great opportunity for the likes of Linux and others to take away market share…that’s been claimed over and over and it’s not happening except for maybe Apple.
Linux is a kernel, it doesn’t report profits and it isn’t in the financial market.
Financial market shares relate to how much money a business can make.
Linux doesn’t need market share to be useful.
Edited 2007-10-26 17:08
Microsoft is facing competition from all the sides with Linux distros getting better, mass migration of governments(such india/brasil) to linux desktops, broader OPF support by governments, searches, advertisment, enterteinment (xbox/zune) it is REALLY incredible that they are doing that good.
The guy knows how to grow money!
1.) Establish near monopoly on OS & Office productivity applications.
2.) Release new versions.
3.) Profit!
Easier than taking candy from a baby.
“Easier than taking candy from a baby.”
If it’s so easy why haven’t you done
it, or have you?
The guy knows how to grow money!
It’s really not that hard when you have complete control of all aspects of your market, and more than $4B in the bank in cash to ride out the rough spots. They can put out mediocre products and still sell, fanboy related zealotry notwithstanding. All they have to do is cash the checks every month.
To all those who make that success possible.
Thank you for paying the Msft tax again and again. I’m sure share holders will make good use of your money.
This article is very interesting for share holders, but what dose it have to do with OS News?
To all those who make that success possible.
Thank you for paying the Msft tax again and again. I’m sure share holders will make good use of your money.
Everybody, especially shareholders of just about all tech issues on the NASDAQ, is thanking MS today.
By the number of your posts here, I can only assume that either:
A. You work for Microsoft.
or:
B. You are a stock investor that has little (if any) interest in Operating Systems. (beyond MSFT stocks)
Never the less, let me ask you a simple question:
If I’m not a stock investor and I’m just a users – Should I be happy and why? Or, better yet, why should I even care?
– Gilboa
P.S. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are just happy about making a lot of money and not trolling; please treat me with the same curtsy.
Ah good ol’ trusty “You must work for Microsoft” argument. Love it!
I offered it as a suggestions given the huge number of gloating (?) posts he made.
Even if you like Vista (and some do) such a behavior (given the original subject) is highly irregular.
One must agree that -normal- people will not post so many different response to the same thread unless they have a vested interest in the subject at hand… I don’t see how can a normal OS user can have such an interest.
– Gilboa
Edited 2007-10-27 16:49
Ah good ol’ trusty “You must work for Microsoft” argument. Love it!
Actually, most people in this thread supporting Microsoft have done that work for us: they’ve admitted they either (a) have shares in MS, (b) write apps for MS OSes, (c) are fans of Microsoft or (d) just don’t know and/or care about OSes and technology (where members of group (c) who are not also members of (a) or (b) are almost invariably members of group (d) instead. It’s not surprising when people with a vested interest in Microsoft are happy when Microsoft claims to do well, even if and when the claims are total bull.
A B and C are not “work for Microsoft”. Try again.
Duh! It’s a matter of common sense. One would hope a company that forces its products and services onto every computer; into every school and into as many businesses as possible through dubious licensing deals while simultaneously making up fraudulent claims or threatening patent lawsuits against the few competitors that dare confront them would be making bank – big time!!
One would hope a company that forces its products and services onto every computer
Forces?! Nobody forced Windows onto my desktops. I’m an Apple OS X, FreeBSD and Vista user. Nobody forced anything onto my notebooks and desktops.
He’s referring to when Microsoft lackies force OEMs to purchase their software at gunpoint.
Why, just the other day I saw a Microsoft hit squad take out a poor defenseless point-of-sale terminal and replace its SCO system with Windows Embedded. It was a tragedy.
(EDIT: Pronoun mismatch error.)
Edited 2007-10-26 17:48 UTC
So when you purchased your computer, it didn’t have an OS? If it was an Apple, you had OS-X – no choice in the matter. If it was a PC and you bought it from a mainstream channel (like an electronics store or big name vender,) then it probably had Windows Vista or XP – again, you had no choice in the matter. If you chose to wipe the installed OS and install your own choice(s), then I applaud you. I do the same. Wouldn’t it be nice, however, if the big PC manufacturers offered OS choices? Dell has taken the first baby step in this direction, but I have yet to see a print add for a Dell computer running Ubuntu (all their ads are adorned with the “Dell recommends Vista…” moniker.) Also, it would be nice if schools and other places of learning were “neutral” and used OpenOffice (and open formats) and open operating systems such as FreeBSD or Linux as opposed to teaching computing skills using proprietary, closed (and expensive) systems like Windows and Microsoft Office. I haven’t run Windows in five years, nor any other Microsoft Product and it hasn’t hurt my productivity one bit. If anything, it has freed me!
Edited 2007-10-26 18:05
Dell has taken the first baby step in this direction, but I have yet to see a print add for a Dell computer running Ubuntu (all their ads are adorned with the “Dell recommends Vista…” moniker.)
Maybe because Dell doesn’t want to recommend Ubuntu…that’s *their* choice.
Also, it would be nice if schools and other places of learning were “neutral” and used OpenOffice (and open formats) and open operating systems such as FreeBSD or Linux as opposed to teaching computing skills using proprietary, closed (and expensive) systems like Windows and Microsoft Office.
I don’t know of any university that uses Windows as part of their computer science or other curriculums.
The university I attended used unix variants.
Yet, despite having cut my teeth on unix in formal academia, I choose Windows and OS X for my desktops because they run great and help me get things done.
That was true ten years ago. Since the MS monopoly ruling, Microsoft has essentially given big piles of software to schools. Now almost all CS programs teach their students with MS tools – Visual Studio, Office, etc. Point, click, move along…
That was true ten years ago. Since the MS monopoly ruling, Microsoft has essentially given big piles of software to schools. Now almost all CS programs teach their students with MS tools – Visual Studio, Office, etc. Point, click, move along…
But if ALL open source software is *free*, and comes with the perceived added advantage of being able to study the code and change it…then MS isn’t undercutting anybody by ‘giving big piles of software to schools’…those schools are free to use Eclipse instead of VS.NET no?
So, if what you say is true, why aren’t schools going with open source tools?
When this happened (mid 90’s, I think), there weren’t any “easy-to-use” open-source IDE’s out there. Visual Studio actually supplanted Borland C++ in many schools. Realy, once people started tagetting PC’s, it was really about Window’s programming in general. People weren’t coding for Unix. Schools tend to prepare people for jobs. Most of the jobs were for VB or Visual C++. Now that java has become more important, and other languages like PHP, Ruby, etc, I wouldn’t be surprised if Eclipse starting showing up more often. What else would java students use? Microsoft has essentially abandoned the java world after the snit with Sun.
So in short, Borland C++ lost to Visual Studio. I would be surprised if Visual Studio started losing to Eclipse. It makes a great C++ IDE, and can run on any platform. If I were a school that taught more that just .NET, I would standardize on Eclipse. I guess we’ll see!
Why did Borland C++ lose to Visual Studio? It sure wasn’t that VS had a superior product, and MFC was way behind Borland OWL in easy of development (OWL was a fantastic object model for windowing in comparison).
If you recall you’ll remember that Microsoft was getting dicked by Borland for dev tools (far more people used Borland). Microsoft and Borland had a dispute about the terms for Borland to get MFC source and Borland’s next product was delayed. Developers didn’t want to wait and the center of gravity for development moved to VS. Once critical momentum was gained VS took over, and the rest is history. For Borland tool users it appeared that Microsoft unfairly engineered this to remove a competitive threat. Standard operating procedure for Microsoft I’m afraid.
It is monopoly the root cause that VS beat BC. But the direct reason is, because Borland has the same commercial model as Microsoft, the monopoly state (i.e. unique knowledge to underlying OS or even changing OS for its own compiler’s purpose, enough money) make Microsoft can provide better product. VS is *superior* to BC for most of developers.
But things changed. Linux is another model. Now, monoploy is nothing more than *monopoly*, it does not mean better product any more. Eventually trying to contorl people will lose and the winner will be the one provide the best product.
Yay. It’s growing.
…wait. Is that good for the rest of us?
I don’t know that this is really of any newsworthy value. YES sometimes osnews posts financials, but it’s usually about a smaller company / startup / merger rumors / or bankruptcy. Considering the state of the US economy – very few people I know would like to hear about any large corporation’s “high profits”. Sorry, I’m not trying to troll – just vent some steam.
“A friend of mine had a boil on his posterior. It grew. He surgically removed it.
”
I don’t plan on having kids, so if I die bankrupt that’s just dandy with me. The only “good” rich person I’ve ever met personally was Al Gore.
Oprah seems nice too.
just never met her!
simply to provide a free as in freedom alternative that works. On those merits Gnu/Linux has already suceeded on all fronts for most technical people.
Edited 2007-10-26 18:05
Gates will give it away in third world countries, Balmer will do the monkey dance and paul will do somethings involving a giant yacht, a space ship one or two, and some medical research.
…one has to wonder where they hide their weed plantations
price gouging really works! nice work microsoft!
Maybe I’m reading it incorrectly (trained as an astrophysicist, not a finance guy), but I read the balance sheet a bit like this:
1) Gross Income is up by around $2.9G (G=giga=billion).
2) Net Income is up by $0.8G (about 1.2% growth over $65G).
3) Total assets are up by $2.5G, assuming Goodwill has increased by $5.5G (probably means Vista sold into the channel but not yet onsold at retail? if so, then that should be worrying them).
4) Liabilities are down by $1G (well done!)
5) Repurchased stock down by $5.4G (they stopped investing in their own stock to prop their balance up?)
6) Cash from investments down by nearly $8G (woah!)
7) Cash and equivalents down by around $3.4G as a result
Ok, so perhaps I’m reading it incorrectly, but is seems to me that while Microsoft have grown their revenue their overall *strategic* financial position has worsened quite a bit (it’s still very healthy, just relatively worse than in the past). They will be able to maintain operations at this level for a long time, but eventually investors should become nervous at the rate they have been using their resources to maintain their stock price – the very expensive stock buybacks they have been doing to maintain their stock price. However, it appears there is decreased stock repurchases and investment this time around as it would have impacted their balance sheet too much – so that means the balance sheet growth might not be as strong as it seems just going on revenue growth.
Edit: re-read investment section on balance sheet and saw the money spent in investments was only down $1G but the money from investments is down a lot (doesn’t change the amounts I said, just where the money is going/coming from).
Edited 2007-10-26 19:59
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/sec/filing.asp?Symbol=MSFT
We can see just exactly where this Gross Income increase falls.
The amount of investments Microsoft has to offset sales is staggering and just good business.
I’d love to know how they’re cooking up those numbers. More than 100% growth from the previous quarter?
That’s a lot of protection money being paid out. Guess they figure they’d have all the major Linux distros completely embroiled in legal action by then.
MS is still around? I remember when they shipped Vista, and that was the end of that.
We can hope.
What is the real reason for Microsoft’s profit, monopoly or innovation? The truth can be only one and out there. But unfortunately normal people, or prbaboly Ballmer himself, is not able to figure out. What we are really talking about is a *belief*.
It’s what Linus said, everything is eventually just for fun. Just make your belief bring fun to you.
A big change was the XBox segment. It’s revenues were much greater and giving them a positive return for once. I doubt it will help that Bungie has gone independent however.