Microsoft said the weaker earnings came as it invests money in its services push and also as it tries to ramp up production of the Xbox 360 games console. Microsoft on Thursday reported third-quarter sales and earnings that were below what some analysts were expecting, and said future earnings will be dented as it aims to boost its Windows Live Internet services and other new businesses.
oh dear a few million under a few BILLION… the pain!
The stock had its biggest single-day decline since November 2000, lopping about $32 billion off its $281 billion market capitalization and reducing the value of Chairman Bill Gates’s stake by about $3 billion.
Oy that’ll leave a mark
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=businessNews&st…
R&D costs just for three moths were >$1.6 billion. Even more amazing is that marketing accounted for more than twice the expenditures of R&D, $2.3B. It’s hard to imagine spending that much on research and even more on advertising. How many facilities and people do they have working in purely research related activities? Is Windows Vista a “research” project for accounting purposes? Even so, at that rate they will have spent more than $5B on research over the course of the year.
Trying to buy too many markets at once?
Interesting revenue breakdown at the bottom of the investor page:
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY06/earn_rel_q3_06.mspx#inc…
You're absolutely right. These numbers are very telling.
I have tried to look more at it here:
http://www.bitsofnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=36…
I think I’ll celebrate by going to – Target
:):)
When thier earning fall below junk bond status than that’s the time to party
Edited 2006-04-28 23:21
If they act legally, no losses will happen to their revenues. God knows how many customers want to sue them for the losses and harm that happened to them from their OS and applications which they were forced to buy.
Edited 2006-04-29 00:02
Ouch. I wonder if people are just tired of having money in a watered-down stock that never goes up year after year. Maybe they feel stupid. All the Wall Street whores and shills saying “just wait a bit more” eventually sound hollow.
And didn’t OSAlert once have a little article pushing the stock, or was that my addled imagination?
Edited 2006-04-29 01:50
The FUD marketing department will get a cut in there budget?
If anything, MS might increase their marketing and sales budget to increase the hype and take money away from development.
The FUD marketing department will get a cut in there budget?
They should get cuts. They’ve done a lousy job marketing Vista. Whether it’s genius or a complete waste of time, they’re supposed to be making it look like “the next big thing”. Instead, an awful lot of people are saying “so what?”
Looks like it’s going to be a rotten year for Microsoft. Delaying Vista and the new Office has really blown it with the Wall Street mob who have nothing to do but kvetch and focus on the negatives. Microsoft have almost nothing in the cupboard to crow about between now and Christmas whereas Apple, Google and co. seem to have a stream of good-news new moves.
Essentially, Microsoft have said that they will spend a lot of extra money next year, hence lower profits. This could mean they are investing in some new ideas that will sock it to the competition, or it could mean that Microsoft are under such assault on all sides that the basic cost of keeping the ship going is rising inexorably.
Depends on your perspective. Bull or bear?
The stock was at $24.30 in October last year. Their stock has been cycling between $23 and $29 for the last 4 years.
The stock market this year seems to be selling off like mad at any sign they might not get their divedends
Bugs can influrence stock by approximately 0.6% believe it or not.
They dont innovate. They are behind the competition, they hot air about WEB SERVICES yet Google is doing what MS hot air about. They need less hot air and more action.
Balmer leads by HATE which does not realy inspire its employees. Microsoft is a beached whale with its current structure and leadership.
Edited 2006-04-29 11:51
Problem with Microsoft is that their stock is too much high. Everyone expects Microsoft to rule world, but it won’t happen, simply. Apple are here. Google are here. IBM/Oracle and company are here for enterprise. Free desktop and “different culture” is rising – think OS X/Ubuntu/Fedora combo. IT feels alive again, thanks to many foreign companies and EU patent fight.
Xbox (both consoles) – still loss. Can’t talk about technical stuff, but they don’t earn any money with it.
Media Center stuff – forget it, Apple and Sony will definetly rule this market.
Live services – so far they have done worst job on this. They spend milions dollars to get very bad working search engine. But let’s what they can do about it yet.
Vista – certainly Vista won’t sold as good as 2000 or 98, maybe it will be even with XP. Lot of people will stick with XP
Embedded – they were kings for some time, but now lot of other devices and services rises and they want to top them all. Bad decision, as stock analysis says. I agree.
Microsoft won’t go away but they definetly will lose their market value.
Windows only sells what it does via one path, OEM’s and Enterprise licenses. The windows retail market is small compared to that, we just download it anyway.
Windows only got where it is via the OEM market. Ie., FORCED installs. Apple is getting more shelf presence in “consumer” computer stores.
Over-rated and over-issued. The greedy bastards issued 11 BILLION shares during the naz mania. 11 billion of anything is bound to end up worthless.
Compare that to a stock that went UP 11% over the last few days – Apple. Apple has “only” 800 million shares on the market. So volume-wise, it’s not a great beached whale and is able to actually go up on good prospects.
“Windows only got where it is via the OEM market. Ie., FORCED installs. ”
Dont forget the market leverage they got from rampant pirating.
quote Churchill:
“This is not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning”
or something like that.
“This is not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning”
But for whom?!
“This is not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning”
But for whom?!
“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill
Speech given at the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, Mansion House, London, November 10, 1942.
Earning go up earnings go down. its not a terribly surprising thing. Rolling out the 360 this early cost them a lot of money but they will regain it as things get rollign later this year and early next year. Just how it is.
Oh, woe!
this comes to no suprise as they last month or less went through a reshuffle of there company in some departments . to hear there losing money might wake them up. they’ll propably lose more money after Vista is released.