Microsoft earnings sail past estimates
Whatever form of capitalism it is that Microsoft is practicing, it seems to be working.
Reporting second-quarter results Thursday, the company said it earned $6.48 billion, or 50 cents per share, on revenue of $16.37 billion for the three months ended December 31.
Analysts were looking for about $16 billion in revenue and per-share earnings of 46 cents per share. That's at the high end of what Microsoft forecast back in October. Investors have also been keenly interested to hear what Microsoft has to say about its own outlook as well as its sense of the broader economy.
"We are in the midst of another strong year with great momentum heading into calendar year 2008," Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner said in a statement. "We continue to see healthy demand from both businesses and consumers in the United States and our growth in emerging markets is especially strong."
For the coming quarter, Microsoft said on Thursday that it expects revenue in the range of $14.3 billion to $14.6 billion, and per-share earnings of around 43 cents to 46 cents. For its full fiscal year, which ends in June, the company estimated that revenue will be between $59.9 billion and $60.5 billion, with per-share earnings in the range of $1.85 to $1.88. Estimates for both the current quarter and fiscal year are up from prior forecasts.
A top Microsoft executive said in November that the company was not seeing any signs that economic worries were affecting Microsoft's business.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Something stinks when they continue to make profits this obscene for software that is barely ordinary.
The fact is, Microsoft is launching very successful products and creating new successful businesses 24/365.
No amount of ******** by the so-called 'M$-haters' will ever change this.
Apple is spending 246 Million on R&D and almost 3x's as much on marketing... that's a$$ backwards.
Vista SP2 is a parallel project, I think they are already working on it as SP1 is close to release.
Anyway, they are definitely not giving up on Vista. They gave up on DOS with Windows, and on Windows 9x with NT, but the vista core is still the basis for all future projects (obvilusly they have to do a major rewrite a few years from now, like they did for NT, but that's still far away).
ain't so!!!!
From http://libertymiller.blogspot.com/2008/01/microsoft-q2-earnings-summary.html
:
"...through the magic of numbers, second-quarter revenue and profit growth rates are exaggerated when compared to results a year ago. Why? Because Microsoft 'deferred' more than $1 billion in net income, based on delays in releasing Windows Vista and Office 2007."
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2252539,00.asp
this is on top of record earnings last quarter
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3707391
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3723766
- money machine
- by johnedlt January 25, 2008 9:54 AM PST
- theyve always been a money machine.
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(22 Comments)the reality is online software is many years away from its desktop counterpart.
advertising google's revenue source will never out-budget or out-
value the service or product it was created to promote. but yes
there are many but's...