“Microsoft Corp., whose Windows software dominates the personal-computer market, fell 4.6 percent in early U.S. trading after sales slumped, casting doubt on whether PC demand can hold up in a slowing economy,” Amy Thomson and Crayton Harrison report for Bloomberg.
“The world’s largest software maker reported a 24 percent drop in sales of Windows last quarter and forecast earnings that may miss analysts’ estimates,” Thomson and Harrison report.
“Windows sales fell to $4.03 billion. UBS AG’s Heather Bellini, the top-ranked software analyst by Institutional Investor, had predicted $4.3 billion. Sales of Office word- processing and spreadsheet applications also trailed forecasts,” Thomson and Harrison report. “Losses at Microsoft’s Internet business widened to $228 million, while sales rose 40 percent to $843 million. Microsoft had forecast growth of as much as 45 percent.”
Full article here.
Amy Thomson reported for Bloomberg yesterday, “Microsoft Corp. declined 5 percent in extended trading after it reported an 11 percent drop in third-quarter profit and forecast earnings that may miss analysts’ estimates as Windows software sales fell.”
“Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said Microsoft will stand firm on its offer for Yahoo! Inc. and will explore other options, including a proxy fight or abandoning the offer, if no deal is reached by this weekend. Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Wong declined to comment,” Thomson reported.
“Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer has sought to bolster sales by selling more higher-priced versions of Windows, the operating system that runs more than 90 percent of the world’s PCs. Those gains were limited last quarter,” Thomson reported. “More Windows sales came from emerging markets, where prices are typically lower, Liddell said in an interview. Piracy rates also picked up in Asia, particularly China, Liddell said.”
Full article here.
Excerpts from a BusinessWeek interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, October 12, 2004:
BusinessWeek: What can we learn from Apple’s struggle to innovate during the decade before you returned in 1997?
Steve Jobs: Apple had a monopoly on the graphical user interface for almost 10 years. That’s a long time. And how are monopolies lost? Think about it. Some very good product people invent some very good products, and the company achieves a monopoly. But after that, the product people aren’t the ones that drive the company forward anymore. It’s the marketing guys or the ones who expand the business into Latin America or whatever. Because what’s the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself? So a different group of people start to move up. And who usually ends up running the show? The sales guy… Then one day, the monopoly expires for whatever reason. But by then the best product people have left, or they’re no longer listened to. And so the company goes through this tumultuous time, and it either survives or it doesn’t.
BusinessWeek: Is this common in the industry?
Steve Jobs: Look at Microsoft — who’s running Microsoft?
BusinessWeek: Steve Ballmer.
Steve Jobs: Right, the sales guy. Case closed.
Source: The Seed of Apple’s Innovation
Spot on!
Jobs, he brilliant (written like ‘God, he’s brilliant’, since Jobs is God!).
Mr. Jobs for president. I know he’s another lib, but he’s smarter than the three lib candidates.
Right on Firewire!
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Haha, Jobs cracks me up!
Nice one Ron! If only McCain was further right. =(
I don’t foresee any upside for Microsoft from here on out. It will be a long, slow, slide downward into irrelevancy. Eventually, they’ll have a profitable, but dead-end niche as the “dinosaur OS” some large companies need to run legacy software, while all the consumers and young innovative businesses have moved onto something else.
——RM
This is simply a minor market adjustment. I expect you MAC sissies to get your panties in a bunch. Just wait until the next service pack for Vista is released. That will shut your big smug MAC lemming mouths.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Is the Titanic sinking?
And here’s the key to MisterSoftie’s future:
“. . . what’s the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself?”
That’s MSFT’s future in a nutshell. Unless they have plans to expand their sales force to Mars or Venus, they already have all the market share they’ll ever see. The only way to go from the top of the heap is DOWN.
From the businessweek article, I found a new way to explain why switching to Mac is great for most people…
“It’s because when you buy our products, and three months later you get stuck on something, you quickly figure out [how to get past it]. And you think, “Wow, someone over there at Apple actually thought of this!” And then three months later you try to do something you hadn’t tried before, and it works, and you think “Hey, they thought of that, too.” And then six months later it happens again. There’s almost no product in the world that you have that experience with, but you have it with a Mac. And you have it with an iPod.”
they’re the new, new IBM
now that they are toast, I’m not following anymore Microsoft news or stories.
That Jobs exchange should be predictive as to his choice of a successor as CEO. Look to the pool of product guys.
Okay, check this out –
I know it’s just a glitch in the Google Finance charts. It happens all the time. But timing is everything, as they say, and when I checked MSFT yesterday after earnings were posted, I saw
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Microsoft dropped so hard, they busted through the bottom of the chart! WOW!™
Quote Zune Tang:
“Just wait until the next service pack for Vista is released.”
With Microsoft it’s always just wait till the next pack, Next version, Next everything and when it comes out and is the same old same old.. it’s the same story over and over and over again at Microsoft. Just wait for the next…
People are tired of waiting for what they what and for what works. Because waiting is not good enough any more… The Next service pack, the next version, the next…
For average users and IT organizations big and small the waiting is over… I hear it more and more … They are evaluating their options.. Linux, Solairs, MacOS… they are all on the table… I hear it more and more we’ve been tasked by the CTO to work out a plan for the phase out of all Windows servers and Desktops…
I just love that sales guy quote.
” Just wait until the next service pack for Vista is released.”
You inadvertently left out the most important word between service and pack.
“Fudge.”
While I’m inclined to take out the “world’s smallest violin” (index and thumb rubbing in “sympathy”), given that MSFT is deemed a bellwether company, when it goes down it drags others down. AAPL, so far, is holding firm.
The fact is, for a company that invests billions yearly in research and development, there’s not much to get anyone excited. Microsoft is a momentum play, making big bucks on the default choices that are Windows and Office. The long awaited decline is underway.
Get this. Let the shareholders kick out Ballmer and bring in Steve Jobs as the new CEO (We know Steve can handle multiple CEO positions). He then promotes all the people associated with the Mac business office and then works on making the new office simple and stable…say like Word 5.0.
Then drop windows, and then everyone will switch over to the Mac and buy Mac office and a new (Mac) operating system.
Everyone wins.
Ok now here is my idea for world hunger……
At Zune Tang – I always look forward to your insightful prose but you disappointed me this time.
Did I also mention that I know exactly how women think?
“I don’t foresee any upside for Microsoft from here on out. It will be a long, slow, slide downward into irrelevancy. Eventually, they’ll have a profitable, but dead-end niche as the “dinosaur OS” some large companies need to run legacy software, while all the consumers and young innovative businesses have moved onto something else.”
It’s always funny to hear Apple users talk about M$ being a niche product…with 90%+ marketshare.
I don’t believe Steve Jobs is God but he is probably in direct contact with God.
Did anyone catch anything on Zune sales and their online music store? Today’s WSJ didn’t have anything on that, and I don’t see anything in the other articles I read. I know it’s small potatoes for MS, but I’m curious.
Further right than “war for 100 more years!” McCain…? Only guy further to the right than him is Hitler.
“The fact is, for a company that invests billions yearly in research and development, there’s not much to get anyone excited.”
What? The thought of an extremely expensive big ass table that’s a strain to use doesn’t fill you with glee and a giddy, tingling sensation? No squirt for you, buddy.
“Did anyone catch anything on Zune sales and their online music store?”
I read that they sold another one to a ten year old in Boise, Idaho. He got a refund a few days later when his parents threatened to have the shop owner arrested for child abuse.