Microsoft releases its quarterly financial report and gives itself a pat on the back
Microsoft released a glowing
analysis of its Q2 results earlier yesterday. The report focused
heavily on strong sales and takes a rather self-congratulatory tone, which may
sound eerily familiar to some recent Macworld attendees.
Microsoft describes sales as "robust" leading to revenue increasing
to $16.37 billion, a 30% growth. However, the large increase in revenue
Microsoft acknowledges is due in part to $1.64 billion in deferred revenue from
the second to third fiscal quarter of 2007. Without the deferral the
revenue increase would be a more modest, but still respectable, 15% increase.
Despite somewhat sour opinions of the operating system around the Internet,
Microsoft's Windows Vista is clearly not hurting for sales. A total of
100 million Windows Vista licenses have been sold. Exactly where this
places Windows Vista when compared to competitor Apple's OS X is unknown.
According to Apple, 2 million copies of Leopard
were sold in the first week, roughly matching Vista's initial sales pace by
some estimates.
Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms and Services Division at Microsoft,
expressed happiness with Vista, stating, "We are pleased with the progress
of Windows Vista in the market. We’ve hit our stride with partners and
customers and are looking forward to the release of our first service pack
later this quarter."
Microsoft also pointed in the report to the positive progress in its Zune
business, including the release of new flash
based iPod shuffle/nano competitors, though it declined to list specific
sales figures. Microsoft also reported that the total number of Xbox 360s
jumped to 17.7 million worldwide, up 70% from the previous year.
Microsoft recently faced rough PR and legal times, as it is under investigation
again by the EU after already
surrendering one major fine. Further, new reports allege that Microsoft
skipped
quality testing and knowingly released defective Xbox 360 hardware to beat
Sony to launch.
"So, I think the same thing of the music industry. They can't say that they're losing money, you know what I'm saying. They just probably don't have the same surplus that they had." -- Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA
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