[kwlug-disc] MS making a bit o' cash

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Fri, 29 Jan 2010, john at netdirect.ca wrote:

> kwlug-disc-bounces at kwlug.org wrote on 01/29/2010 04:16:28 PM:
> >
> > They posted a 60% increase in profit last quarter.
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/technology/companies/29soft.html?
> > ref=technology
> >
> > Also, last quarter, linux made $0 :).  Doesn't look like linux on the
> > desktop is making an impact at all.  But has it stopped MS in the server
>
> > market?
>
> The detailed analysis of revenue (year over year) is
> http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar09/10k_fr_dis.html
>
> The highlights are:
>
> Net Income from
>     Windows $10.1B (down 17%)
>     Server and Tools $5.3B (up 17%)
>     Online Services $(2.2B) (down 84%)
>     Business (office, sharepoint, etc) $12.1B (down 2%)
>     Entertainment (XBox, Zune) $169MM (down 66%)
>
> >From this you can see that Windows and Office are the big breadwinners for
> Microsoft, reaping 87% of their operating income. Server and Tools is
> profitable and growing steadily but the rest of the business lines are
> hurting.

  some time ago, someone wrote a piece detailing how microsoft gamed
wall street by artificially smoothing out their year-to-year revenues.
given that wall street likes uniformity and no surprises, in a good
year, MS would bank excess revenue to avoid having a sudden spike in
income, then in a bad year, they would suddenly withdraw that banked
excess to brings things back to normal.  doing this, MS would show a
steadily increasing and pleasantly smooth revenue from year to year.

rday
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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

            Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.

Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
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