9 ms·
Microsoft reports $22.6B in Q4 revenue
- known 10y agoRevenue dipped to $20.6 billion from $22.2 billion in the same period a year ago http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Microsoft-posts-3-1-billion-in-profit-a-year-after-big-loss/articleshow/53295912.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Microsoft-...
- bearbin 10y agoThe headline is very confusing - "Microsoft beats Wall Street predictions with $22.6B revenue" would be a better choice.
- kyriakos 10y agoTechcrunch...
- jackmaney 10y agoAgreed. I spent several seconds wondering if there was either a subdivision of Microsoft or yet another overvalued start-up with the name of Street. I guess in the latter case, the name would be Streetly or Streetr or something equally dumb.
- devcamcar 10y agostreet.io :/
- allengeorge 10y agoReally? "Street" is a pretty common term for Wall Street (aka. the consensus opinion of analysts) I've definitely seen it for years.
- chenster 10y agoI hate English.
- jessriedel 10y agoI had no idea what it was. Presumed it was some new startup.
- TheWiseOne3 10y agoThat's like suggesting we should dumb-down computer programming article titles so people ignorant of the article and anything it contains might somehow get an inkling what their missing out on.
- csixty4 10y agoI'm used to seeing it in financial news. But this is a tech site. Different audience. Just like how I cringe when I see terms like "the cloud" in Business Week or one of those magazines.
- jonknee 10y agoWell it's an article about quarterly earnings, it's OK to use financial terms.
- mfoy_ 10y ago"the Street" or "Street's estimate" or something to provide more context. I also thought "Street" was some tech thing that was competing against some Microsoft business line.
- nl 10y ago*beat the Street" is a very common term. Google N-Grams has it being roughly 1/10th as popular as the term "silicon valley" or "wall street"[1]. That's a pretty significant amount of usage. [1] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=beat+the+Street%2Cwall+street%2Csilicon+valley&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cbeat%20the%20Street%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cwall%20street%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Csilicon%20valley%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=beat+the+Stree...
- 0xmohit 10y ago> During today’s earnings call, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also noted that Windows 10 users have now asked Cortana 8 billion questions to date. Not sure if this qualifies as an achievement. Too many questions would perhaps suggest that things aren't quite obvious. Wish I had a Windows box to play around and see what Cortana looks like. A variant of Clippy?
- xamlhacker 10y agoCortana isn't a Windows help client, rather it is an intelligent assistant and search engine. To give you a very common example, you can ask Cortana about today's weather. So not sure how that is related to "things aren't quite obvious".
- sdrothrock 10y ago> Not sure if this qualifies as an achievement. Too many questions would perhaps suggest that things aren't quite obvious. > Wish I had a Windows box to play around and see what Cortana looks like. A variant of Clippy? Your comment suggests that you don't know what Cortana is, so I'm not sure how you're coming to the conclusion that "Too many questions would perhaps suggest that things aren't quite obvious." Cortana is a digital assistant, like Apple's Siri. Common queries could be things like "when's my next appointment," "what time is it in Tokyo," or "when's the next showing of Interstellar?" It doesn't reflect on Windows itself possibly being hard to use.
- 0xmohit 10y agoI keep forgetting that, in today's world, people would even need to ask Siri or Cortana whether they are thirsty.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoOT: It's a complete aside but humour me. IME people can mistake thirst for hunger - one thinks one is very hungry but drinking some water (or other drink) and the feeling of hunger subsides, not scientific but there seems to be something in it. I wonder if there is some test for an optimum hydration level that a computer could do (visually?) or indeed if in a few decades we'll be monitored so closely in our actions in our homes (or at least those of us who are rich will) that Son-of-Siri will be telling us we should have a drink. Probably Microsoft/Apple/Google/Buy&Large will be getting back-room deals to get their intelligent companions to order specific brands of drink for us and make recommendations when we're not quite thirsty that we need a drink "how about a Buy&Large cola"!!?
- julsimon 10y agoNot according to GAAP rules... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-19/microsoft-misses-gaap-revenue-eps-beats-non-gaap-after-using-lower-tax-rate-stock-so http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-19/microsoft-misses-ga...
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> adds back such items as Windows 10 deferrals to revenue What does this mean? Are Microsoft counting people who haven't upgraded as if they have upgraded?
- forgetsusername 10y ago>What does this mean? It sounds like they are deferring some of the revenue from licenses sold with the intention of booking it over the life of the OS, as "free" updates are released.
- Dwolb 10y agoIt might mean the opposite. GAAP rulea may dictate they book the revenue over the life of the OS to better match liabilities in the form of updates. MSFT want to book all the revenue now as an "economic reality". It sounds like they're also claiming restructurings of their phone hardware division was a "one time charge" and removing those expenses, again, to better represent the "economic reality".
- forgetsusername 10y ago>GAAP rulea may dictate they book the revenue over the life of the OS to better match liabilities in the form of updates. MSFT want to book all the revenue now as an "economic reality". I think you might be right; the revenue should be deferred over the life of Windows 10, but their non-GAAP measure books it up front. Hence the top line beat. Not a particularly heinous accounting maneuver.
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- chx 10y agoI absolutely hate these confusing words. It is alongside of "surname" and "last name" -- why can't you just use "family name" and "given name". While I understand an investor report needs to be precise the articles about it needs to use terms people understand. Like "this is how much money came in the doors" -- aka. income. I believe the word "revenue" is used for what a layperson would call "income" and "income" is also used but for something else. And then good luck figuring out how much profit they made. I searched and this article alone http://phys.org/news/2016-07-microsoft-profit-year-big-loss.html http://phys.org/news/2016-07-microsoft-profit-year-big-loss.... puts it in easy-to-understand way right in the very first sentence: > Microsoft said Tuesday it posted a profit of $3.1 billion in the just-ended quarter Is that painful to write or what? Because noone else did. Edit: for example, one could write "Microsoft have sold software and services for $22.6B and made a profit of $3.1B". That's easy. Also, I realize it's not perfect (because they also sold hardware and got money from IP deals) but it's not my task to come up with easy-to-understand phrasing and it only needs to be done once. It's just an example of how to use words that non-accountant people can understand.
- romanovcode 10y agoMaybe this article was written by a bot
- aristidb 10y agoRevenue and net income are standard, and (relatively) precise terms. Using "income" in place of revenue would only make it confusing to people who know the standard terms, while only marginally lessening the confusion of people who don't know them.
- droshelovich 10y agoGAAP is basically a huge bundle of compromises between corporations and the FASB. In reality, "revenue" and "income" don't really have rigourous definitions. Quarterly figures are also often adjusted in subsequent periods. Unfortunately, many websites simply gloss over this fact and just report the stated numbers.
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- heyrhett 10y ago"The increase in Microsoft's annual revenue since Google was founded is still greater than Google's total annual revenue." https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/526406718440218624 https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/526406718440218624
- forgotAgain 10y agoThat statement was made about 18 months ago. It is no longer true. Microsoft's revenue in FY 1998 was $14.48 billion as per https://news.microsoft.com/1998/07/16/microsoft-posts-record-revenue-and-income-for-fiscal-1998/ https://news.microsoft.com/1998/07/16/microsoft-posts-record... . Last 12 months rev for G and M are $75 and $85.3 billion per Google finance. edit: M's revenue had actually decreased $8 billion over the prior 12 months.
- ProfChronos 10y agoIt is weird to see Techcrunch faking the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg with GAAP, "Street" and earnings per share expressions. Really not what I expect from TC... I can't help but think that good old days when TC used to explore new ideas and technologies are gone. Today almost all their writers just post update about a funding round, a developer conference or a new product feature. I wish I could get more in-depth articles about major topics like open AI, future telco/messaging networks, etc.
- forgetsusername 10y ago>I can't help but think that good old days when TC I honestly can't remember what the "good old days" of TC even looked like. MG Siegler writing fawning pieces about Apple? The latest Arrington drama? I came for the comment section. When they integrated Facebook, I never went back.
- GnarlyWhale 10y agoMaybe they're trying to edge out the Journal for this kind of news. If I recall Bloomberg and the Journal both have some kind of pay wall up, which at least has kept me from using them.
- cmdrfred 10y agoI'm sure the horseshoe manufacturing firms beat out Henry Ford for a while.
- sharemywin 10y agoGoogle '98 0 Microsoft 98' 14B Google '15 74B Microsoft '15 93B I'd invest in a horseshoe manufacture that grows revenue 4.6B a year for the last 17 years.
- cmdrfred 10y agoMicrosoft's pricing model is off the rails. Ever look into Windows Server? Then the required CALS? It often costs twice the price of the hardware. Businesses will be moving to Linux/Cloud Apps like Google Docs over Office/Windows fast. There is little reason to stick with the MS ecosystem anymore.
- softawre 10y agoEnterprise
- cmdrfred 10y agoRebuttal
- wbkang 10y agoHave you tried using Google Sheets vs Excel for more than an hour? Google has a few more years to catch up for Excel.
- bitmapbrother 10y agoAre you comparing Google Sheets to Excel Online or to the Windows/Mac application?
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- godgod 10y agoHow much of that 22.6B is from the NSA.
- throwaway3983 10y agoQ4?