“Microsoft Corp reported its first quarterly loss as a public company on Thursday as it took a previously announced hit for writing down the value of its ailing online unit and suffered stagnant sales of its flagship Windows operating system,” Bill Rigby reports for Reuters.
“After several years of stumbling behind mobile and Internet trailblazers Apple Inc and Google Inc, and a decade-long static share price, some expectation is building that Microsoft can re-establish itself as a tech leader with its new, touch-friendly Windows 8 system, due out on October 26, and an accompanying tablet of its own design.,” Rigby reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Those with that expectation deserve our pity, not our scorn, for they are obviously quite ill and likely incapacitated to the point where they are unable to feed themselves, go to the bathroom without assistance, or walk even short distances without a helmet and a drool bib.
Rigby reports, “The company reported a net loss of $492 million, or 6 cents per share for its fiscal fourth quarter, compared with a profit of $5.87 billion, or 69 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. The loss was expected after Microsoft said earlier this month that it would take a $6.2 billion write-down for the value of its online unit after an ill-fated acquisition. Microsoft has not suffered a quarterly loss since going public in 1986.”
“The stock [MSFT] is up 10 percent so far this year, compared to a 14 percent gain in the tech-heavy Nasdaq,” Rigby reports. “But it has remained locked around the $30 level, which it has not exceeded for any prolonged period since the tech stock boom 12 years ago.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Balmy, you’re doing a heck of a job!
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Apple bulldozes Street with blowout $39.2 billion revenue; shares rocket in after-hours trading – April 24, 2012
Apple stuns Street with massive $46.33 billion record revenue; all-time record Mac, iPhone, iPad sales – January 24, 2012
For as long as it takes!!!
(and hurry up)
I like our stragety, I like it a lot!
(Personally, I like watching a slow death, pain and suffering – like their lastest Surface Demo)
Die like a f*****g dog, and soon. This is old and getting older.
Unlike Microsoft, dogs are good.
Why do you dislike dogs?!
Oh, it’s just a quote from a certain North Korean, no intended slur on man’s best friend
It’s too bad the buyout of Yahoo didn’t go through. Yahoo is worth about half now what it was when Microsoft tried to buy.
Nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah, hey hey goodbye.
(just warming up for the inevitable)
lol, perfect anthem for The Great Demise, well done.
Thank you. Nice avatar. We must bleacher-creature some time in the future. Alas, I’m in Seattle, and will be at Safeco watching them crush the Ms next week. Another time,,,
You missed a “hey.” Thirty lashes.
No he didn’t. The last “hey” is held… “hey ey”
Off with your head!
I’m going to hate to see the chair repairman in Redmond out of a job.
Forgive us all a well deserved cruel chuckle. May Balmy surf that rapidly diminishing Windows wave all the way to Davy Jones Locker.
Plus one.
Aye! All the way to Davey Jones Locker!
Go Apple!
I hope there isn’t any ‘Talk’ about letting Balmy go!
He’s doing a great job in my opinion.
Anyone else share the same opinion as I do?
I do, i want Balmy to stay in microhard and get boogie
M$ is not Microcent.
M$ -> M¢
Finally financial evidence of what many of us have been saying for a long time, that the 800 lb dinosaur has been dying but was just too big to know it. The next step will be to watch their stock go from a decade of flatness to a gradual decline.
Radical changes are needed, maybe now the board will push for it.
SHHHH! No no no, nothing to see here. No radical changes to be made. niceman just has the heat stroke or something don’t listen Microsoft board! Stay asleep board of directors, Ballmer is doing a fine job!
Ha, ha, ha. Yes, keep Balmer in.
Looks like the momentum from the lucky break they got with DOS all those years ago is finally slowing down.
Everything Microsoft has achieved is simple momentum from that lucky meeting with IBM all those years ago.
I hope I live to see the day when Apple buy them, sandbox Windows, strangle it, and get everyone quickly onto a modern unix os.
Thats about 1000 percent right. Thats why “fake journalist” never mention that tidbit at all.
To all Microsoft employees…I hear Apple is hiring.
To late all the good people at MS have long ago left or were fired to save money. Go Balmer!
‘Quiet don’t let the board think anything is wrong’
They finally got to a point where they can’t hide their losses any more – All that number manipulation in the past has caught up to them…
Take away the write off and Microsoft would have posted a profit of 6 billion!
$6.2B – $0.492B = $5.71B <- profit without the 6.2B write-down
$5.87B <- Last year's profit for same quarter
Microsoft still had a worse quarter year-over-year (without the one-time write-down), even after using any and all available accounting "magic" to make last quarter's loss look as "good" as possible.
yep, I think that’s the main take-away.
the write-down was a one-time blow.
Unless others follow, that is.
Question: HOw can you record a record 4th qtr of $18-06 billion income and still have a loss? (http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/19/microsoft-announces-record-q4-18-06-billion-in-revenue/)
I understand the accounting – not the hype.
Pleased as punch with Balmy’s performance.
As long as it takes.
IIRC there are GAP and Non-GAP figures in play here, which might help to explain the disparity.
Time to crack a bottle of Bubblie again.
A toast…To MONKEYBOY! May his reign be long…as long as it takes. Keep on dancing’!
the End is near for Ballmer T Clown & His Band of Evil-Doers…god, I love it.
It doesn’t matter how bad SB is as much as what’s wrong with the Board over there and with the stockholders for not already insisting on change. Perhaps they will after this latest MSFT trend…quarterly losses.
Ha ha!
Now if only Google would elect Balmer as CEO!!
MSFT ceo Steve Ballmer needs to be embalmed (mummified) into oblivion or iSteved into intelligence.
more idiotic are his fans, board of trustees, shareholders who vote for his vomit incessantly like a donkey on blind spots.
what do you expect from a crass, ugly car salesman?!
You just made all the car salesman in the world cringe.
Will Bill Gates give Ballmer a wedgie for the loss?
God, I hope not! That would be painful for us!
This should really show if Stevie really has pictures of Bill!!!
Ballmer has given his friend, Bill Gates, a call already to explain the rounding error. Unfortunately Microsoft’s accounts dept haven’t fully got to grips with their new Excel 2013 package yet!!
I predict a Microsoft-branded PC will make its debut shortly after the Win 8 debacle.
A PC is the only way Ballmer can delay talk of him steppng down.
Apple should help them by giving them $150 million. If for nothing more that to shut up the MS fan boys I am tired of hearing how Apple resurgence was due to Microsoft’s donation.
That amount of cash might make them last about 10 days longer.
For the benefit of those who remain suckered by the ‘Microsoft saved Apple’ BS:
Microsoft were actually screwed over, via the most friendly methods possible, for having stolen, then refusing to return, Apple QuickTime code from a third party developer. Steve Jobs asked Bill Gates to a nice meeting about the problem. It resulting in:
1) Microsoft paying Apple an undisclosed amount of money as damages for the code robbery.
2) Microsoft buying $150 Million worth of Apple non-voting stock shares that would mature in three years.
3) Microsoft promising to provide Office for Mac for the next five years. Gates even promised to have MS code the next version of Office for Mac before the Windows version.
4) Gates appearing on a big screen at the next Mac World conference keynote supporting Apple. This of course was analogous to the Big Brother 1984 Apple Mac commercial. No wonder Gates was booed when he appeared on screen.
Lest anyone is still deluded enough to believe Apple was about to go ‘bankrupt’ at that point, the company reported $1.2 Billion in cash on hand at the end of that quarter. Here is some critical reading:
August 6, 1997:
Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple