Wow! Microsoft has a great fiscal quarter

[a042349]

A couple thoughts...

My understanding is that MS makes next to nothing on Xbox sales. If that's true, then the sales figures for the consoles themselves (excluding extra revenue - Xbox Live, accessories, etc) may not be contributing much to the bottom line. Here's an article that explains it. Xbox One Profits Additionally, I had heard that MS has NEVER made a real profit on ANY Xbox (console hardware) sales to date, but I don't have a link for that.

On the Windows RT question, my understanding is that MS sees value in eventually converging Windows Phone and RT into one mobile OS, while keeping Windows x86 as the desktop/laptop/tablet OS. Some crossover on tablets obviously, but keeping ARM in the mix, and Intel on their toes, are both worthwhile to MS.

Lastly MS makes about 2 billion a year from Android patents it licenses. Not a bad return for not doing any actual work. Link

Bottom line, MS makes a lot of money where you may not see it, and not nearly as much where you might think they do. Big companies are really confusing like that.

 

[verpeiler]

Well, profitability is everything. And MS knows that better than anybody else.

Businesses all around the world would stop.

Not true. Best example? The the city of munich converted 15.000 PCs to linux and it works just fine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

 

[Liquorpuki]

A couple thoughts...

My understanding is that MS makes next to nothing on Xbox sales. If that's true, then the sales figures for the consoles themselves (excluding extra revenue - Xbox Live, accessories, etc) may not be contributing much to the bottom line. Here's an article that explains it. Xbox One Profits Additionally, I had heard that MS has NEVER made a real profit on ANY Xbox (console hardware) sales to date, but I don't have a link for that.

The way the console industry works is hardware is subsidized by software. So they take a loss on hardware or break even at the beginning of each launch. After a few years they redesign the hardware when the cost of components goes down and then break even or pull a small profit.

At the same time, they're continually making money off software. Licensing, first party titles, etc. The software part is what those articles are leaving out.

 

[Faux Carnival]

Not true. Best example? The the city of munich converted 15.000 PCs to linux and it works just fine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

Well, I don't know about City of Munich. But, I'm pretty sure F500 companies still rely heavily on Windows based computers. And another thing is MS Office. Take away Excel and Outlook and watch what happens.

 

[MozMan68]

My company is pretty ahead of the game as far as larger companies are concerned and is already on Office 2013. The seamless integration between all of the programs as well as utilizing SkyDrive has made my work so much easier...to the point that I have even asked for a Surface Pro 2 to replace my full laptop!

 

[verpeiler]

Well, I don't know about City of Munich. But, I'm pretty sure F500 companies still rely heavily on Windows based computers. And another thing is MS Office. Take away Excel and Outlook and watch what happens.

Well, I just wanted to show that you CAN change when you want to. Of course heavy-Excel-stuff can't be done by "MSoffice-clones", but for just some documents and spreadsheets (my guess is that's 95-98% most people use word/excel) can easily be done with e.g. Libre Office.

 

[Michael Goff]

Well, I just wanted to show that you CAN change when you want to. Of course heavy-Excel-stuff can't be done by "MSoffice-clones", but for just some documents and spreadsheets (my guess is that's 95-98% most people use word/excel) can easily be done with e.g. Libre Office.

If only 25% of all of Microsoft's business customers, the ones who are using Office 365, knew that. They could probably save a lot of money. >_>

 

[AustinIllini]

All engineering work is done on Windows 7 based PC's.

Corrected for accuracy. Windows 8.1 may be "gaining" on Windows 7, but Windows 7 will dominate the enterprise sector for some time if MSFT doesn't get its act together.

 

[Michael Goff]

Corrected for accuracy. Windows 8.1 may be "gaining" on Windows 7, but Windows 7 will dominate the enterprise sector for some time if MSFT doesn't get its act together.

"Get its act together"?

 

[AustinIllini]

"Get its act together"?

Have you used windows 8 on a non-touch screen machine? You think F500 companies are just going to dump all their current machines for Windows 8 touch screens? Judging by the way Vista was (or wasn't) adopted, I think Windows 8 gets skipped by a huge chunk of F500 companies.

 

[Michael Goff]

Have you used windows 8 on a non-touch screen machine? You think F500 companies are just going to dump all their current machines for Windows 8 touch screens? Judging by the way Vista was (or wasn't) adopted, I think Windows 8 gets skipped by a huge chunk of F500 companies.

Yes, I use Windows 8 on my Macbook Air at times. I go to the desktop, I use the Modern UI as a giant start screen. When 8.1 came around, I had it be "boot to desktop", and "show apps, desktop first". My workflow hasn't changed from 7, strangely enough, when I do use Windows.

Err... I mean "Nobody can use Windows 8 on the desktop or laptop or anything without touch. It is awful."

 

[AustinIllini]

Err... I mean "Nobody can use Windows 8 on the desktop or laptop or anything without touch. It is awful."

It may or may not be "awful", but it's certainly neither better nor more efficient than Windows 7. For this reason, I think companies will skip it.

 

[Michael Goff]

It may or may not be "awful", but it's certainly neither better nor more efficient than Windows 7. For this reason, I think companies will skip it.

Actually, they'll likely skip it I because they're slow and just now pushing out Windows 7. Why would they stop in the middle of their deployment of 7 and start testing again yo amok sure everything works with 8? If the Metro UI had been introduced in 7, they'd be moving to that right now and not to 8 anyway.