4 ms·

And if revenues were the most important number, that would matter somewhat. To this day I still don't understand why it seems profit is about the last thing pe

by traskjd 16y ago

And if revenues were the most important number, that would matter somewhat. To this day I still don't understand why it seems profit is about the last thing people look at. Maybe that explains a lot actually.

macrael 16y ago
In the context of this article Income == Profit. The gap there is "narrowed" to $1B. Still a very large number no matter how you slice it.
- csmeder 16y ago
  yes, but there is a derivative to think about here. How long before that gap is $1B with Apple on the other side. That is the real news here: the delta not the so much the position.
  - jasonlotito 16y ago
    I don't know. Microsoft had larger growth rates than Apple. http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/04/microsoft_windows_pcs_outpace_macs_in_consumer_market.html http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/04/microsoft_windows_p... "Microsoft said worldwide Windows consumer licenses grew by more than 35 percent in the recent quarter. By comparison, Apple this week reported an increase of 33 percent in Mac sales over roughly the same time period. That was impressive, too, of course, but Microsoft is growing from a significantly larger base of sales to begin with, making its higher growth rate considerably harder to achieve." Which is actually interesting, when you consider when Apple succeeded. It was during a time between XP and Windows 7. Vista got thrashed in the press and between friends (and I like Vista), so you didn't have the upgrade their. So, basically Apple was competing against XP. Of course, this is a simplification of everything, but with Windows 7 doing so well, I think you have a lot of people fine with finally upgrading off their rather old XP machines. Combine that with the economic turn-around, and the fact that people are still money-aware, the lower cost of the upgrade to a Windows 7 machine is very attractive. With what MS has in store with Live Wave 4, I think we can see them finally bringing things together. Couple that with Windows Phone, and Office 2010, there are a lot of interesting things with MS at the moment.
    - evgen 16y ago
      I am not quite sure why everyone is reporting this number as if it were some miraculous revival of MS. Windows 7 doesn't suck. Lots of people have been waiting, and waiting, and waaaaaaaaaaaiting to upgrade from XP. A lot of them gave up hope and moved to Macs; those users aren't going to be coming back. What MS might have done is stop the bleeding in the desktop OS market. It will take a couple more quarters to see if this is the case. I recently ordered 25 upgrades for sales and marketing people in my company and this sort of SMB activity may also make up a large portion of this growth in "consumer" licenses (Vista sucked so bad we were willing to maintain an EOL version of Windows and even "upgrade" boxes to XP that were shipped to us with Vista.) In terms of how this fits into the general economic picture, I am waiting to see evidence of this activity as being an upgrade _to_ a Windows 7 machine vs upgrades of existing computers to a new rev of Windows. If non-Apple PC sales show a similar increase then this claim may be valid, but if Apple growth continues to outpace other hardware vendors you will be seeing evidence that this is more of an upgrade in place than any real growth of the Windows ecosystem. ["Interesting" may be one word to describe Windows Phone (or whatever they are calling it this month) but most reviews and reports do not seem share your belief that it is in any way indicative of MS finally "bringing things together"...]
      - jasonlotito 16y ago
        "["Interesting" may be one word to describe Windows Phone (or whatever they are calling it this month) but most reviews and reports do not seem share your belief that it is in any way indicative of MS finally "bringing things together"...]" 2010 + Wave 4 + Windows Phone + Office 2010 + XBox Live + Zune HD Yes, they are bringing things together. Is everything complete? No. But you can finally see where they want to go, where everything falls into place, and where they want to go. That's really more what I was meant to say by "bringing things together," the start of the "bringing together", not the end. =)
cakesy 16y ago
It is much better to get higher profit on lower revenues.

by traskjd 16y ago

macrael 16y ago

In the context of this article Income == Profit. The gap there is "narrowed" to $1B. Still a very large number no matter how you slice it.

csmeder 16y ago
yes, but there is a derivative to think about here. How long before that gap is $1B with Apple on the other side. That is the real news here: the delta not the so much the position.
- jasonlotito 16y ago
  I don't know. Microsoft had larger growth rates than Apple. http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/04/microsoft_windows_pcs_outpace_macs_in_consumer_market.html http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/04/microsoft_windows_p... "Microsoft said worldwide Windows consumer licenses grew by more than 35 percent in the recent quarter. By comparison, Apple this week reported an increase of 33 percent in Mac sales over roughly the same time period. That was impressive, too, of course, but Microsoft is growing from a significantly larger base of sales to begin with, making its higher growth rate considerably harder to achieve." Which is actually interesting, when you consider when Apple succeeded. It was during a time between XP and Windows 7. Vista got thrashed in the press and between friends (and I like Vista), so you didn't have the upgrade their. So, basically Apple was competing against XP. Of course, this is a simplification of everything, but with Windows 7 doing so well, I think you have a lot of people fine with finally upgrading off their rather old XP machines. Combine that with the economic turn-around, and the fact that people are still money-aware, the lower cost of the upgrade to a Windows 7 machine is very attractive. With what MS has in store with Live Wave 4, I think we can see them finally bringing things together. Couple that with Windows Phone, and Office 2010, there are a lot of interesting things with MS at the moment.
  - evgen 16y ago
    I am not quite sure why everyone is reporting this number as if it were some miraculous revival of MS. Windows 7 doesn't suck. Lots of people have been waiting, and waiting, and waaaaaaaaaaaiting to upgrade from XP. A lot of them gave up hope and moved to Macs; those users aren't going to be coming back. What MS might have done is stop the bleeding in the desktop OS market. It will take a couple more quarters to see if this is the case. I recently ordered 25 upgrades for sales and marketing people in my company and this sort of SMB activity may also make up a large portion of this growth in "consumer" licenses (Vista sucked so bad we were willing to maintain an EOL version of Windows and even "upgrade" boxes to XP that were shipped to us with Vista.) In terms of how this fits into the general economic picture, I am waiting to see evidence of this activity as being an upgrade _to_ a Windows 7 machine vs upgrades of existing computers to a new rev of Windows. If non-Apple PC sales show a similar increase then this claim may be valid, but if Apple growth continues to outpace other hardware vendors you will be seeing evidence that this is more of an upgrade in place than any real growth of the Windows ecosystem. ["Interesting" may be one word to describe Windows Phone (or whatever they are calling it this month) but most reviews and reports do not seem share your belief that it is in any way indicative of MS finally "bringing things together"...]
    - jasonlotito 16y ago
      "["Interesting" may be one word to describe Windows Phone (or whatever they are calling it this month) but most reviews and reports do not seem share your belief that it is in any way indicative of MS finally "bringing things together"...]" 2010 + Wave 4 + Windows Phone + Office 2010 + XBox Live + Zune HD Yes, they are bringing things together. Is everything complete? No. But you can finally see where they want to go, where everything falls into place, and where they want to go. That's really more what I was meant to say by "bringing things together," the start of the "bringing together", not the end. =)

cakesy 16y ago

It is much better to get higher profit on lower revenues.