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Microsoft’s annual revenue surpasses $50 billion

Microsoft Corp. has announced revenue of $13.37 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2007, a 13 percent increase over the same period of the prior year. Diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $0.31. Earnings per share would have been $0.39 were it not for the previously announced charges primarily related to Xbox 360 warranty policies.

For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2007, Microsoft announced revenue of $51.12 billion, a 15 percent increase over the prior year. Diluted earnings per share for the year were $1.42. Excluding certain items, earnings per share would have been $1.49, an increase of 17 percent. $31 billion in cash, or approximately 175 percent of operating cash flow, was returned to shareholders during the year through share buybacks and dividends.

“Surpassing $50 billion in annual sales is a testament to the innovation and value that our product groups delivered into the marketplace, as well as the outstanding execution by our field sales, marketing teams and partners to bring that value to life with our customers,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft.

“Our results this quarter cap off an extremely strong fiscal year for the company,” said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. “We have healthy core businesses and are strategically investing in growth opportunities, which will build on our success and contribute to continued double-digit revenue and earnings growth in fiscal year 2008.”

The previous quarter was also very kind to the software giant. Microsoft witnessed a 32 percent increase in revenue to $14.4 billion, operating income of $6.59 billion and net income of $4.93 billion. Earnings per share also jumped 72 percent in Q3 to $0.50.

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Vista piracy protection?
By DonkeyRhubarb on 7/20/2007 9:12:30 AM , Rating: 2
Could a part of these earnings be to do with Vista being much harder to crack than previous versions of Windows?

I myself actually went out and paid for Vista. And on my laptop and main PC. So thats two OEM copies that they would have otherwise not gotten money for.

Im not saying that I didnt pay for windows before ;-)

Just stating that I did this time ;-)




RE: Vista piracy protection?
By TomZ on 7/20/2007 9:17:48 AM , Rating: 1
I haven't studied the numbers, but I would guess that sales are up mainly due to Vista (and the reason you mentioned) plus the release of Office. These products are starting to get some traction, I'd guess.


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By crystal clear on 7/20/2007 10:26:36 AM , Rating: 1
PluggedIn: Vista's growing pains leave room for XP

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUS...


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By TomZ on 7/20/2007 10:33:44 AM , Rating: 1
I can certainly understand what they're saying. I think Microsoft is benefitting because Vista is helping drive sales of new computers (and thus licenses), while at the same time people who have concerns about Vista are still buying XP licenses.


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By DEVGRU on 7/20/07, Rating: 0
RE: Vista piracy protection?
By TomZ on 7/20/2007 11:32:08 AM , Rating: 2
I see your point, but I respectfully disagree. There was pent-up PC demand at the beginning of the year due to folks holding out a few months waiting for Vista's release. Microsoft's marketing did have an effect, even if waiting for Vista wasn't justified in all cases.

In addition, the vast majority of PC's shipping this year will have Vista installed. The ones shipping with XP are just a fraction of the total. To see for yourself why this is true, just go to HP and Dell's web sites, and look at the distribution of Vista-only PCs compared to the small number where XP is an orderable option.


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By xsilver on 7/20/07, Rating: 0
RE: Vista piracy protection?
By TomZ on 7/20/2007 12:58:03 PM , Rating: 2
That's pretty funny, actually.

"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"
-Vista


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By crystal clear on 7/21/2007 6:39:22 AM , Rating: 2
Thats what I call a "Blockbuster" response-very original !


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By bhieb on 7/20/2007 2:06:08 PM , Rating: 3
Your kidding right? You think New Coke was on purpose.

That particular incident is regarded as one of the biggest blunders in business history. They did not bring back Coke to make it sell better (it was already on top), they brought it back to save the company.


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By xsilver on 7/21/2007 4:06:46 AM , Rating: 2
ah yes i was kidding - i guess people didnt get the joke since i got rated down.

but the fact still remains that if you make a product and it fails and you have a backup product readily available - it will benefit; making it a win win situation.

in the coke example, classic coke was bought back to save the company, but I think the sales figures showed that sales after the fiasco were HIGHER than before; having something new and crap made people appreciate how good coke was before and thats exactly what coke needed at the time.
Win xp seems to be experiencing the same thing as we bitch and moan about how bad vista is; we live to appreciate the flaws of xp anyways.


By General Disturbance on 7/21/2007 12:38:15 PM , Rating: 2
Yah but, Vista isn't as bad as new coke, it is actually a lot better.


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By drank12quartsstrohsbeer on 7/20/2007 12:47:31 PM , Rating: 2
XP's development costs are already paid for. So someone buying a copy of XP instead of vista probably produces more profit for MS.


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By TomZ on 7/20/2007 1:42:34 PM , Rating: 2
Both Vista and XP are in the same as far as being "paid for" as you said. Vista development was completed approximately a year ago. The exception is of course the staff they have dedicated to SP1, which I assume is very small compared to the main development. Both Vista and XP have ongoing security, patch, and support staff.

In any case, since there have been no massive layoffs at Microsoft, we can safely assume that they currently have thousands of developers currently working on the next versions of Windows - Windows Server 2008 which we know a lot about, and the successor to Windows Vista, which I don't think we know much about at all.


By drank12quartsstrohsbeer on 7/20/2007 2:41:54 PM , Rating: 2
yeah, true. I was thinking of the various blurbs I have read all over the net about how XP is still selling well, and suggesting that this is somehow a bad thing for microsoft. My guess is that MS makes the same amount of money per licence, wether it is XP or Vista.

In fact, MS probably stands to make more money by continuing to sell XP. A person buying XP today will probably buy Vista within the next 2 years or so. A person buying Vista today probably won't buy another OS from MS for another 5 years.

I heard somewhere that the sucessor to vista will be much more compartmentalized, where you buy different parts of the OS. I don;t know if that is true, but it seems like a better approach. That way they can sell the stripped down versions in emerging markets more easily.
Most of the 'stuff' you get with xp/vista isn't really related to the OS anyway.


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By bryanW1995 on 7/20/2007 10:11:40 PM , Rating: 2
Our proprietary software at work won't work with vista, so we have to get xp on all of our computers. Our last few purchases were dells that come standard with vista; we "asked" them to put xp pro on them instead, which they did at no charge.


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By crystal clear on 7/21/2007 7:49:17 AM , Rating: 2
Thanks to virtualization software available -it makes life easy for everybody.

My daughter(in university) uses an iMac with parallels also Winxp-pro for daily use.

For her studies/projects etc (2nd computer) she uses WinXp 64 bit edition.

The following is an example from the link I provided-

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is advising incoming freshmen to buy PCs loaded with Windows XP.

"XP is still fully functional. It's what people are familiar with," said Jon Hunt, who made the decision for MIT. But he expects MIT will soon start supporting Vista.


She does not feel the need for Vista right now,she rather wait for Apple`s new O.S. to be released to upgrade, then upgrade to Vista(maybe !)at the same time.

This is just an example how each user decides what good for them(they are well aware of Vista & have tried it/used it sometime/somewhere).

Even universities like above influence the decsions of students on the choice of an O.S.


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By crystal clear on 7/20/2007 10:30:43 AM , Rating: 2
Hi Tom -this for you !

Original 1983 iPhone (PIC)

http://www.reuters.com/article/blogBurst/technolog...


RE: Vista piracy protection?
By TomZ on 7/20/2007 10:41:03 AM , Rating: 2
That's pretty cool, I hadn't seen that before.