Comments on: Microsoft sales unharmed by Vista delays

Software giant reports quarterly earnings Thursday that beat expectations and its own forecast.

[ddesy]

No surprise here

I'm really not surprised by Microsoft's sales not slumping over the holiday season. Why? Many people I know, including both the technical and non-technical people, seem to be unwilling to jump on board with Microsoft's new OS. Some of them bought new computers during this time frame specifically to make sure they could still get PCs that are running XP rather than Vista!

If this attitude is as common as it appears, I think Microsoft might take a little while to get a decent Vista acceptance level in the consumer market.

Myself, I'm still happy with Mac OS X.

[KTLA_knew]

That MUST be it

There isn't any other reasonable explanation for having another good quarter, other than Vista forcing everyone to buy PCs before the launch...

[mh20932]

Exactly -- this says that nobody cares about Vista

And nobody put off buying a computer to wait for it.

[Lindy01]

Spoken

like a true fanboy. You logic is so flawed.

Regardless of whether you MS, Apple, or Linux fan there are just some glaring obvious facts here.

Staring on the 30th of this month Vista will come pre-installed on many vendors PC?s. The number of PC?s that will be sold in one month by HP and Dell with Vista on them will be quite large.

In a matter of a few months almost all major vendors will ship Vista on all of their PC?s. Gateway, Toshiba, Acer, IBM?.all will ship Vista on 90+% of the PC?s they ship.

So at the end of 2007 there will be far more PC?s with Vista on them than all of the Macs running OSX.

That is a fact?.and not some fanboy dream. Like it or not.

[Mister Winky]

And when they perform well next quarter, what will you say?

"Many people I know, including both the technical and non-technical people, seem to be unwilling to jump on board with Microsoft's new OS...If this attitude is as common as it appears"

Wow, that looks like some strong data you got there. How many people do you know? Millions?

You are free to hate MS, detest Bill Gates and believe Vista is a meaningless upgrade, but unless you have any real data, your speculation is simply unfounded. Do you simply have some inside scoop that all the financial analysts seem to have missed?

The real question is, how will you spin Microsoft's positive 1Q performance if they meet or outperform expectations again? Evil empire? forced upgrade? Whatever will you reality-denying haters pull out of your hats?

-Mister Winky

[chabig83]

Strange Accounting Spin

"Healy noted that the company would have posted 20 percent
growth if one includes the sales that were deferred to this quarter."

Translation...If we applied some of this quarter's sales to last
quarter's numbers, it would have been a pretty good quarter.

[SiXiam]

Free Vista Coupons

Most are getting certificates for Vista when they buy a new computer, so it really is a good time to buy a new pc...

2 Operating Systems for the price of 1

Vista works well... you install, if not then, well you fall back to xp...

[extinctone]

Not spin, but there is a story there

Sales that were "deferred to this quarter" implies sales that were held off so they'd include Vista. More specifically, those sales took place last quarter but because they included free upgrades to Vista they couldn't be posted until this quarter (see the recent overblown hoopla about Apple having to charge a small charge to enable a wireless update for a similar "accounting" problem).

The story here is that Vista sales effectively started last quarter so people did get new systems anticipating having Vista but also the fact that MS didn't have to post more sales into this quarter shows a continuing strength in XP sales.

Let the spinning begin... :)

[City_Of_LA]

Now, according to the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6300675.stm

Who's right?

[ashgilpincom]

bugs

There are still many bugs to work out before they have a finished product. Even then, I'll probably wait for SP2 to roll out before I upgrade.

http://www.ashgilpin.com
http://www.eyepinch.com

[Llib Setag]

What about all the PC Partners of MS?

THEY lost money over the 2006 holidays due to the "once again
delayed Longhorn / AstalaVista OS " not being released until the
end of January 2007...

First Zune sticks the music MP3 partners in the back, now Vista
says, we're doing just fine at Redmond One, what's your problem
partners?

News Flash! Microsoft + Dell join to become the new "Apple" for
PC people... Vista only works on "our own" PCs...

Game over for HP PCs / Sony PCs / Lenovo PCs / Toshiba PCs /
Gateway PCs / etc. etc. etc...

Nooooooo we're not an illegal world wide monopoly. (not)

[FutureGuy]

Sorry to blow your cover

..You can spin it any way you want. The fact is that MS profits did drop.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16813736/

"The long-delayed launch of the Windows Vista operating system cut into fiscal second-quarter profits at Microsoft Corp., which reported a 28 percent drop in earnings Thursday despite revenue growth that exceeded forecasts."

"Even so, Microsoft?s ?client? division, responsible for Windows, posted a 25 percent drop in sales to $2.59 billion. And the business division, which includes Office, saw a 5 percent drop to $3.51 billion.

The falls were expected because Microsoft had warned it would be heavily deferring Windows and Office revenue from the second quarter to the current period. That was done to account for coupons that recent computer buyers got to let them upgrade their existing software to Vista and Office.

The deferrals trimmed $1.64 billion from Microsoft?s second-quarter revenue, and $1.13 billion, or 11 cents per share, from profits. If not for the deferrals, Microsoft said revenue would have leaped 20 percent in the quarter."

Check your facts before making stupid comments.