Vista Sales Strong, Higher Than Expected

An anonymous reader writes "Despite reports, it seems Microsoft is not only alive, but has been thriving these last few months. Following Apple's solid earnings yesterday comes above-expectation reporting from Microsoft. Profits jumped 65% from the previous year, and sales of its Windows operating system were strong: 'Microsoft said it deferred $1.2 billion in Windows Vista revenue to the third quarter, to account for upgrade coupons given to PC buyers during the holiday season before the consumer launch of the new operating system. Excluding this figure, client revenue totaled $4.1 billion, 30 percent higher than last year.' Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said Vista beat internal forecasts by $300 million to $400 million, and Office 2007 sales were $200 million better than expected."

Well it figures

it figures that sales are higher than last year, XP is not new and is installed mostly everywhere,,,Vista aint, so if we compare growth and sales Vista will surpass sales for Xp since most of every windows users already own a copy of XP and dont need to purchase it every 6 month

Coupons, Coupons, Coupons

Counting Coupons according to when they are redeemed is a way to spread out the data. It's a big game, no one outside of Microsoft really knows the real numbers, otherwise the shareholders would demand serious restructuring (kill Xbox, Zune, become MS Office company, return cash pile to shareholders, produce more Mac software etc).

Re:Coupons, Coupons, Coupons

Yes, if that means shareholders are short sighted idiots. With software the target is always moving, you have open office gaining traction and Linux gaining traction. Microsoft has something big... it's a 60 billion+ war chest... it's time to find more things to do. While Microsoft aren't the nicest company around (well what big companies are, anyone like their insurance company?) they are good at doing something well as long as they want to. It's in their interest to diversify and try to secure their future. Hell that's what IBM did, the largest revenue company in the world (last time I checked anyhow). They started their consultant business and that is now their most profitable department. Standing still is the death rattle of a company. Once you don't expand you get taken over... as a developer I know its 100x times easier developing an application to compete against an existing application than it is developing it from scratch (another argument against over ambitious patients, they should be there to help, not to hinder simple ideas being used, they need to take into account international conditions, it's not just in the west we are competiting).

Re:Coupons, Coupons, Coupons

Sure, I would not hang up the Xbox, but spin it out, look how well IBM have done, Printers became Lexmark, Laptops became Lenovo and so on. Applications is what Microsoft were good at and they need to get back to it and get on with them, making them faster, simpler and more collaborative, and sell them to anyone who will buy them including Mac, Linux, Symbian, embedded, mobile phones etc, if they don't then in 5-10 years they will find Adobe and Google will have redefined how to be productive and will have pulled the rug out under them.

... and dont need to purchase it every 6 months?

... and dont need to purchase it every 6 months

Please don't given them any ideas.

Re:

Seriously. Between the general lack of logic present in the submission and the fact that it was submitted by an AC, methinks it *could* be astroturf.

These are facts. Reported to the SEC. You can't call raw, concrete sales revenue/profit "astrotuf," especia

Re:Well it figures

These are facts. Reported to the SEC. You can't call raw, concrete sales revenue/profit "astrotuf," especially when they provide the breakdown of numbers with coupons excluded. There isn't even any gray area left.

Facts are nothing without interpretation. The submission implies that a relatively modest increase in sales on the heels of the first new OS release in 6 years means that everything is fantastic over at Redmond. This indicates either presence of spin or lack of a brain. You pick. Coupled with the fact that the submitter is anonymous, I lean toward a PR campaign, which MS has been known to do in that fashion.

Just because you don't like Microsoft doesn't mean everything positive about them is astroturf. I'm hoping it's because you didn't bother reading the article,

I don't particularly care about MS, but lack of logic skills in reporting bugs me. The headline of the submission "Vista Sales Strong, Higher Than Expected" is simply not supported by the only externally available evidence ("Profits jumped 65% from the previous year") because Vista DIDN'T EXIST last year.

You want to do a real study, find out how Vista did vs. XP in terms of quarter-over-quarter earnings jump the first quarter after release. Let's not rely on intentionally-low earnings forecasts from MS that have room for built-in good news. Hell, maybe it would show that Vista is doing better. I really don't care. But let's have some intelligent, unbiased reporting and submissions that don't come from anonymous shills.

Sheesh. Basic logic skills are sorely lacking around here.

No!

No. It can't be. I've been hearing on Slashdot how Microsoft is a dying company for the past five years. And I believe EVERYTHING I read on Slashdot!

Re:No!

Not only is Microsoft dying..

But every other OS that manages to bump up its marketshare more than 3% is the wave of the future, and the only bandwagon you should be on!

A lot of people seem to think it is harmful to your career to ally oneself with the technology that is still the overwhelming leader in the market. Personally I don't understand that.

It's kind of like being the the transportation industry, and choosing to specialize in bicycles...economically, it is not a very good plan.

Re:No!

A lot of people seem to think it is harmful to your career to ally oneself with the technology that is still the overwhelming leader in the market. Personally I don't understand that.

If you don't understand that I have a fairly comprehensive explanation for you to download.

In quarkXpress 7 format only.

Re:

Good point...

QuarkXpress was competing with the overwhelming market leader in the design/layout space- Adobe.

Quark is all but forgotten, while Adobe used its position as a market leader to continue to grow and expand. The people on the Quark bandwagon whi

Re:No!

Except back in the mid-late 90's and even into the early 00's, Quark was the standard for design and layout. Adobe had PageMaker, but real professionals used Quark.

So if you placed all of your important work into the defacto standard of the time, Quark, you'd be a bit behind right now as the industry has mostly moved on. I think what the GP was trying to make a point with, is no companies dominance lasts forever, so try not to tie yourself to heavily to one.

Re:

Speaking from experience I can tell you that this is not what happened. You can use the output of various Adobe programs inside of Quark, that's not the issue. The issue is that Quark went from being light, fast, and reliable to being a gigantic bloated pi

Re:No!

If you don't understand that I have a fairly comprehensive explanation for you to download.

Yes but there is a difference between a technology causing harm to the industry and causing harm to you personally. For instance if I'm a developer working on Windows I won't be causing myself any harm. In fact I'd probably be helping myself.

A lot of "us" windows developers have been programming on it since before it became the "EVIL SATAN" often portrayed here on slashdot and make an excellent living at it. Can I program on Linux? Sure, I do so all the time at home, programming embedded devices and robots and I've released open source software under GPL license. Maybe one day I'll be able to work on them full time. But right now I work on the "Ford" of the industry. It's not unwise and it's not unethical. It's just reality. We deal with the reality of the industry, and that reality is that Windows dominates the market so it makes economic sense to use it.

I don't align my personal feelings with a technology, it's not wise.

 

Re:No!

A lot of "us" windows developers have been programming on it since before it became the "EVIL SATAN" often portrayed here on slashdot and make an excellent living at it.

Some of "us" old-timers developed software for CP/M systems...or Apple II or Commodores...and made a good living on it too. Those platforms were all market leaders in the PC realm at one point in time and they all faded away in obsolescence. CP/M was not a Microsoft product and was what powered the vast majority of "open architecture" PCs for most of the first decade of the markets existence. It doesn't matter how big a leader one platform is over another, it does NOT make sense to jump on one wagon and dismiss the others. There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of a leading market position, however far too many people doing that neglect the alternatives. People need to broaden their horizons.

Can I program on Linux? Sure, I do so all the time at home, programming embedded devices and robots and I've released open source software under GPL license. Maybe one day I'll be able to work on them full time.

Glad to hear that--especially that you make contributions towards the vast library of Free software out there. That way, you aren't limiting yourself should other opportunities arise in your career. There are already many people making a good living with Free software, and perhaps if (when?) you get bored and/or frustrated with Windows you can seek employment with a company such as IBM or Red Hat or Novell, where thousands of people make a living at computers without windows.

But right now I work on the "Ford" of the industry. It's not unwise and it's not unethical. It's just reality. We deal with the reality of the industry, and that reality is that Windows dominates the market so it makes economic sense to use it.

Sometimes it IS unwise, or even unethical, to stick with "the Ford of the industry". Ford USED to be King, and along came this upstart Japanese company Toyota, at a time when "made in Japan" still meant "cheap junk" to many in America. Fast forward to last year, when Ford LOST over a MILLION dollars PER HOUR and Toyota passed them in market share. This would've never happened if people stuck with Ford because it was the market leader. However, people noticed some superior attributes of Toyota products (fuel efficiency, price, reliability) and Toyota improved quickly in area where it was weak (acceleration, corrosion resistance, etc). In the meantime, Ford rode on its established presence and conentrated on sweeoing its problems under the rug instead of actually fixing them (Hello there Pinto!).

So, in the late 1970s, would've you considered it unwise to buy one of those new Honda Civics instead of a Ford Pinto because Honda was new to the US car market and had a much smaller market share? I'd consider that foolish. I'd rather have bought the Civic and saved on fuel, plus the Civic was somewhat less flammable. Market share be damned...the Civic made more economic sense than a Pinto by far.

Microsoft really IS like Ford and Windows sure drives like a Pinto, and I've seen it crash...and burn...far too often not to look at alternatives. Apple could enjoy a Toyota like renaissance...or perhaps Red Hat or Novell or some company yet to emerge.

To hell with Microsoft "Ford Pinto" Windows. I'm looking at "Toyota Corolla" Fedora, "Honda Civic" SuSE and "Subaru" Ubuntu to see what they have to offer.

Re:

That was a great argument and I see exactly what you are saying. I do see innovation being introduced in Linux and that makes me happy. I do see Linux surpassing Windows one day, but on that day Microsoft will proclaim Linux the greatest thing ever and rev

Re:No!

As for Xerox, well APPLE stole from them, not MS.

Here we go... Xerox invented then ignored the personal computer as we know it and Xerox management didn't "get" that, much like HP didn't "get" the Woz. Xerox was a COPIER company who was playing in computers only because IBM started making COPIERS. Management wasn't serious about computers and was happy enough to sell off the technology.

Apple actually licensed the technology from Xerox and hired some of the design team. I worked for Xerox at the Training Center when all that was going down. Yes, I worked on the Xerox Alto workstations, the Xerox 820-II CP/M machines and even touched a Star 8010 Workstation just before they dumped it all.

Re:No!

I choose not to use Windows because as a developer it's not a useful OS in the slightest. That it costs more than Gentoo, is less standard compliant, and the target of more bugs [regardless of the quality of OSS that is] doesn't help either.

A lot of people use Windows not by choice but by the virtue of it's what came with their computer and they don't care to investigate alternatives [even if it's to their benefit].

It's the same reason people eat at fast food joints. It's convenient, around every corner, and seeking out alternatives means they have to do some thinking on their own, which is really scary.

Tom

Re:No!

I choose not to use Windows because as a developer it's not a useful OS in the slightest.

I choose to use Windows because, as a developer, its the most widely installed OS, and God knows, I love the money that comes rolling in from the users of the most widely installed OS. I develop useful applications and web services that don't require my customers to build and learn a new operating system. I let my customers make the choice. (Psst, I also develop on Linux and provide solutions to those customers that make that choice.)

In other words, as someone who likes money and lifestyle, who likes eating, who likes playing, who I choose to go where the money is. Idealism is fine. Personal crusades of windmill tilting are fine, Don. But, in the end, they don't put food on the table, they don't pay for the Hummer, they don't allow you to jet to Fiji for a cool vacation.

I remain flexible, screw idealism and useless and childish OS prejudice.

Re:

And that's a nice rational decision.
We make those kind of decisions all the time and there is nothing wrong with it.
There are probably a lot of windows users who really appreciate that you are a good windows developer.

As a developer, I'm typing on a window

Re:

Personally I only program windows when I have to because it is horrible to work with, especially system programming. But having working mostly with Unix, I find the transition to programming for Windows (everything from system to app programming) to be mu

Re:

I don't spend hours either, I play the few linux compat games (ET, Doom3, quake4, ut), and for the rest I use my xbox, DS, or GBA. The consoles I have plug directly into my tv tuner card, which works in Linux, allowing me to play console games without buy

Re:

The problem is..

Our major application is broken because New Windows is not compatible with Old Windows.

It is going to take us several months to fix this. Microsoft is aware of the issue (CSS differences) and has no plan ot address it.

That means we have to

Re:

I'm sure all of the engineers, factory workers, and shops that center around bicycles would like to disagree with you. I'm sure a lot of the European and Asian countries would also like to disagree with you, given that many of them have higher rates of bik

Re:

Well, it's probably better to be in an emerging and growing technology, than a large but shrinking technology. Wages in the former will be on the way up, and in the latter will be in decline due to a growing supply/demand imbalance.

Re:No!

A lot of people seem to think it is harmful to your career to ally oneself with the technology that is still the overwhelming leader in the market. Personally I don't understand that.

It's kind of like being the the transportation industry, and choosing to specialize in bicycles...economically, it is not a very good plan.

As someone who makes a living progamming on different Operating Systems Every Day. There is a definate advantage having skills in the non-market leader products.
First You can charge more. .NET programmers are a dime a dozen. But for a good FORTRAN Developer that will cost more, and can't easilly be replaced. Or someone who can make heads or tails out of an RPG Data File. For many of these people with old systems moving to windows is much to expensive moving to Linux is much better, easier to port old software, current administration skill, etc... So learning different languages and systems is a real bonus. Even if it not and never will be #1. Also as technolgy advances a lot of things that were old become new again. People with knowlege in a wider skill set are much more adaptable to different systems. How many advanced windows users get fustrated just because a Linux distribution decides to put the Minamize, Maxamize, and close button on the other side of the windows. How many Mac Users or Linux Users get confused when working on different systems. The more you know the better you are at each one. Also it helps with administration even if you don't know the systems as well as an expert with you knowelge with other OS's it allows you to ask the right questions. Say I know the SEARCH command on VMS and I do a google search for VMS to Unix commands and I find that grep does the job of SEARCH. Or if I need to do some scripting on windows what I learned from the numerious SH scripts I can put into .BAT files. It really helps. Putting all your eggs into one OS even if it is the most popular one will lead you become obsolute rather fast.

Re:No!

Crap, you beat me to it.

Luckily, THIS year is the year of Linux on the desktop, however!

Re:No!

I believe that correct answer is, "next year is going to be the year of linux". Thus you can always be right.

Re:No!

I've been hearing on Slashdot how Microsoft is a dying company for the past five years.

They're just trying to copy Apple again, which has been dying for over 20 years now.

Only 30%?

Revenue is only 30% higher after releasing a new product, and this is higher than expected? I'm no expert, but for a new "revolutionary" product that the whole Windows world is expected to adopt... not so good.

Re:Only 30%?

It's a matter of perspective; that 30% revenue growth is equivalent to all of Google's revenue for the quarter. It's hard to push an elephant.

Re:Only 30%?

What's the OEM price difference between Vista and XP. If Vista OEM is 50% or more expensive that XP when buying a new computer, then, sure they're getting more money, but they aren't moving any more copies than they were before. This was the whole point of the new OS, to milk more money from the same number of customers.

Sketchy figures...

Microsoft said it deferred $1.2 billion in Windows Vista revenue to the third quarter, to account for upgrade coupons given to PC buyers during the holiday season before the consumer launch of the new operating system.

So are they counting upgrade coupons as full sales? What if they're never used?
Also, not once do they mention the number of units sold to consumers. Are they including units shipped to stores in their figures, like book publishers do? "We sold 10 million units! 9 million were returned unsold by the stores, however..."

Re:Sketchy figures...

I agree. It sounds very fishy. It looks like they are counting the combination of XP+coupon as being a Vista sale. I wonder if they also counted it as being XP revenue at the same time? I have a hard time imagining that even 50% of the XP+coupon systems sold before January 30 have been upgraded. Most people are capable or interested in upgrading an OS, and a big chunk of those who are, probably (hopefully!) have common sense to stay with XP.

--
Simon

Re:Sketchy figures...

Thank god there are financial analysts here on Slashdot to point out Microsoft's accounting shenanigans.

Microsoft had the entire financial industry bamboozled, but nothing gets past the wiz-kids here!

Well, duh.

Obviously they sold a lot of Vista.
After all, every new PC comes with Vista, if you want it or not (with very few exceptions).
Thus, sales are up. Since Vista is not all that cheap, profits are up.

You're surprised?

Ahhh-Chooo!!!!!!

"Ahhh-Chooo!!!!!! ....excuse me, I'm allergic to bullshit."
-Will Smith, i-Robot

Expectations

Didn't they lower their expectations in January? And now they're saying it's higher than expectations? How does that work?

Maybe Vista does make sense

Maybe this does make sense after all. Here's why:

Windows XP is a very mature operating system. People rarely experience lockups (I haven't had one for months), it looks OK, it's speedy with today's hardware and it is far more secure than it was a few years ago.

The point is that XP is good to those who currently use it. Those who want 'more' just get Vista. Maybe XP and Vista is going to co-exist longer than any of MS:es previous operating systems ever have before, simply because both products are good (or at least Vista will be in half a year or so). Previously, we had 2K and XP competing, and before that 9x/Me and 2K, where we had a clear winner in both operating systems. Now I can't say that Vista is a clear winner to XP, but rather a good 'alternative'.

Yes, Ubuntu and OSX are great alternatives, but it takes a lot to make a user switch an operating system entirely, so I am not taking this into account.

Hmm, this is odd...

I've read so many predictions of Microsoft's demise here because of (admittedly well-founded) flaws in Vista. Surely this article is wrong! Maybe RoughlyDrafted can set the record straight for me...

Someone had better tell Ballmer

"Vista Sales Strong, Higher Than Expected "

Then someone had better tell Ballmer. He's been saying forecasts were over-optimistic:

"Ballmer's comments came during a conference call with financial analysts in which he repeatedly hammered home the theme that sales forecasts for Windows -- Vista in particular -- have been "overly optimistic."

http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php/id;7680622;fp;1 6;fpid;1 [arnnet.com.au]

Obviously, Ballmer thinks people's "expectations" were "overly optimistic"; now we're being told they were overly pessimistic. There's a disconnect somewhere.

M$ is lying

Folks.... it's a complete and utter smoke and mirror trick so investors won't begin bailing out. I sell Technology products to Schools and Universities.... To date, not one of our 4000 clients have ordered Vista. For those who have ordered new computers, 100% of them have said they will be erasing and putting XP on the new machine. Vista is as complete disaster for M$. It's their Newton.

Re:

You contradict yourself. If they ordered a new PC with Vista, then they did order Vista. Just because they choose not to use it does not mean it doesn't count as a sale.

I can also explain the reasoning behind not upgrading. Many software applications do

Simple Explanations

The way I see it, this can be one of two things:

1) Vista is actually being well received, and selling like hotcakes despite all reports to the contrary.
2) Even MS-Excel has critical bugs when running under Vista, especially the version used by Microsoft's accounting department.

Might not be ALL real numbers....

I just spec'd out a new Dell for my dad. He wanted XP on it - but it only came with Vista. I told him that it should be OK......

He IS NOT a geek. But he does all his work and some photo stuff on his notebook and desktop. He HATED Vista. No driver for the printer, some software he uses won't work, had trouble with the camera etc... He was pretty pi$$ed when I talked to him... I told him maybe we could get Dell to give us XP and send Vista back and that would fix everything... (he has XP on the laptop and its OK :)

I tried to get Dell to trade it in, or give me credit, a discount on XP or something like that... but they blew me off and told me that I would have to send back the machine so I could then order the "open source" version. I talked to my dad and he just went nuts for a while and them said he would take care of it... So I figured that he was going to send back the machine and let me build one for him...

NOPE - he gave M$ more money and they also have another "Vista" user on the books... He went out and just bought a full version of XP. I didn't say anything other than OK I'll be up and get it loaded for ya... You have to know my dad... I already found all the drivers that he needs for XP. So everything should be fine.....

BUT IT JUST SUCKS!!!! I freakin HATE MS for this kind of stuff. Did you know that you CAN NOT downgrade Vista Home(any version) to XP - BUT the business versions are ALL downgradeable. You wouldn't want FORD to not buy windows because they have to use the CUTTING EDGE CRAP that we will be QCing for them for the next six months. BUT its OK to screw joe user at home!!! I dont know why they would even make some one PAY for an OS at home.... I guess that 70trillion dollars a year from the businesses just ins't enough.

I would love to load BSD/ubuntu/etc... on my pops machine - I really would. But he's 60ish and NOT a geek and its just not there yet.

Yea M$ sales are up and they should have a column on the sheet that is headed "Customers outright screw and we still made money."

Geesh, I should learn how to write code so I can contrib...

Duke

Remember

accounting is funny stuff.

This goes for ANY company:
When a company seems to be doing better then the market indicates, look at the numbers very closly.

Were there 'expectations' lower than reasonable? Are they counting units moved to outlets, or the unit's then sold?

What is there deal with outlets? can they return unsold stock*? How many lisenses did DELL purchase that it's not using?

what I find funny (MS still doing quite well)

What I find funny is when people laugh and say it's indicative of a failure when Dell et al. start selling systems with XP again instead of Vista. Um, hello? So far as I know, XP is from Microsoft too. The failure I'm looking for is when Dell and such start selling systems with something not made by MS. And I'm not talking about the times they've charged the same (or sometimes, much more) for putting some random distro of Linux on the boxes. I'm talking about Dell putting their own little touches on RH-workstation, or Ubuntu, just like they do with Windows. Actually *selling* the systems, not just offering them on an obscure corner of the web page. Things like mentioning the extra virus safety inherent in the alternatives, for example. Or better, when someone like Sony stops using directX, and puts out all their games in OpenGL. Then, sells a single install DVD that will install on either windows or Linux, because fark, there's not *that* much extra they'd have to do to develop in parallel. Yeah, I know, Loki. Guess what, Loki didn't have the luxury of doing it side-by-side, they simply ported the games others made. I also think Loki would do much better in 2007 and beyond than they did prior to closing in 2001/2002. But yeah, back on point...XP still puts money in MS's coffers, and realistically, for most people the things that are slowing down tech purchases right now have little to do with MS. 1) stupidly power-hungry components, esp video cards and processors 2) blue-ray vrs HD-dvd war 3) availability of directX 10 cards (which should have happened by now, even if MS was slow giving out specs)

Anonymous-Astroturf=0?

An anonymous reader writes "Despite reports, it seems Microsoft is not only alive, but has been thriving these last few months.

An anonymous reader from http://marketing.microsoft.com/Vista/PhaseII/Oh_Sh it.aspx [microsoft.com] ...

Re:

Create a crap OS.

Oh come on. If it really were crap, then you wouldn't have 99% of major commercial software vendors targeting it as a primary platform.

Doesn't he do that all the time?

I seem to remember reading somewhere (on Slashdot, in fact) that he regularly sells off lots of shares in order to (amongst other things) prevent speculation and/or distress if he were to sell them off sporadically.