back to article Microsoft beats cloud drum as revenues remain solid but flat

Microsoft reported flat revenues and shrinking profits for the third quarter of its fiscal 2014, but that was still better news than the analysts were expecting to hear. On average, the Wall Street wizards polled by Yahoo! Finance were betting Redmond would take in revenues of $20.39bn for the three months ending March 31, …

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  1. SineWave242

    No wonder as you can just install about any Linux distro with LibreOffice and a browser and do your work normally as you're used to. This is becoming more of a "fanboi" issue these days as all of our devices are mostly running either Linux/Android or FreeBSD/AppleOS OSes. Windows is becoming a marginal OS and thankfully so. All cudos for giving us a head start in the 90s but we have to move on. Windows is old and so "passe".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "No wonder as you can just install about any Linux distro with LibreOffice and a browser and do your work normally as you're used to"

      Not if you have a job that requires a version of Office that actually works - or need to able use commercial software packages.

      If Linux was a realistic solution then people woudl be migrating to it, but they are not.

      "Windows is becoming a marginal OS and thankfully so"

      75% market share of servers, about 90% on desktops - growing rapidly on mobile phones - doesnt seem so in the near future.

      "Windows is old and so "passe"."

      Its the only truely modern and touch / gesture enabled OS out there at the moment on the desktop.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Its the only truely modern and touch / gesture enabled OS out there at the moment on the desktop."

        And it's the only OS that people are hating with a passion. Especially long time Windows users.

        And you can stick your miss-quoted + fiddled stats up your well fucked arse, TheVogon.

        You left MS years ago, get over it.

      2. Wibble

        @AC - windows stats

        > 75% market share of servers, about 90% on desktops - growing rapidly on mobile phones - doesnt seem so in the near future.

        That's utter utter bollocks. More servers run Linux than Windows - check out the stats. The desktop is a declining market and few companies would even think of rolling out that W8 turd.

        WTF has TIFKAM got to do with anything? Apart from proving Microsoft's pig-headed bombastic approach to customer research.

        Are you Scott Forstall? If you are, then well done for killing Microsoft in conjunction with your pal Monkey Boy. I always thought Microsoft's competition would bring it down, not internal politics...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @AC - windows stats

          Not utter bollocks according to Forbes and Trefis - who are very well respected:

          http://www.trefis.com/stock/msft/model/trefis?freeAccessToken=ba4d051a76587cda89f83a9395d8f8d302fb9cae

          http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/01/09/an-overview-why-microsofts-worth-42/#./?&_suid=139866867515004012210630625267

  2. elreg subscriber
    Linux

    milking the enterprise

    Microsoft still has many years until its big cash cows are gone.

    It will be a slow and dragged-out process whle the enterprise realizes that it can switch from Windows desktops to other cheaper and better alternatives. On the server side: SQL Server can be replaced by MySQL, MariaDB or Postgres; Microsoft IIS can be replaced by Apache or nginx, and so on.

    The writing is on the wall. There's really no compelling reason to use most of Microsoft products save for pure inertia of the massive installed base. Indeed, almost no new, up-and-coming startup has been using Microsoft technologies. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Github, etc. are all firmly built on free-software infrastructure which gives them a huge head-start over more traditional Fortune 500 companies.

    The article doesn't mention the captive-audience increase in licensing fees that Microsoft started using to pad the results. I wonder how the results would have looked like without these price increases on the captive enterprise licences.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: milking the enterprise

      And that's the interesting question for shareholders of Microsoft.

      Executives will always look to grow, diversify and acquire to keep the company relevant because their job is on the line otherwise, but it's much less clear whether shareholders are well served when companies use their deep legacy profits to pour money into new areas that the company has no history in.

      Watching the share price gracefully decline while seeing fat dividends that can be invested in real startups (or safer assets) might well look more attractive to investors than watching Microsoft, Google et al pour money into 20 startup type projects that they're too organisationally cumbersome to effectively deliver and so give meagre earnings and dividends even at the height of core business profitability.

      In the interest of balance, the one glaring caveat here is mid-90s Apple who took a flagging but deeply loved brand and did something astonishing with it, but it's hard to see Microsoft as a brand anyone feels passionate about following into new ventures.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: milking the enterprise

        "Watching the share price gracefully decline while seeing fat dividends that can be invested in real startups"

        Errrm - but it's the highest it's been for 14 years.

    2. MisterBombastic

      Re: milking the enterprise

      There's plenty of reason to use MS server tech - given it's all from a single vendor it works very well together and has support from a single point of contact. IIS/.Net/SQL Server/Active Directory - open-source doesn't come close to the tight integration these huge products have, nor in fact any one vendor to support them all. There's huge value there.

      1. Hans 1

        Re: milking the enterprise

        Have you finished the windows already ? No, so why are you commenting on elreg ... BTW, give my desk a nice shiny look as well, please, thanks!

        Seriously ... ActiveDirectory is not that bad, actually, although it is crap at managing third party platforms ... the rest of the tech is utter crap and shows you have no clue.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: milking the enterprise

          "ActiveDirectory is not that bad, actually, although it is crap at managing third party platforms ... ~"

          That might be because Active Directory by itself isn't meant to be a management tool for third party platforms. If you use crappy third party stuff that doesnt integrate well then that's not Microsoft's fault. There are thousands of products that do work well.

          There are great Microsoft products for integrating with third party directories too: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/solutions/identity-management.aspx#fbid=a3W0aSkKaVe

          "the rest of the tech is utter crap and shows you have no clue."

          Actually, this statement just shows that YOU have no clue.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: milking the enterprise

        it's all from a single vendor it works very well together

        You say it as though it's a good thing. Infact, it's really bad: It only works well together. With anything else? forget it! They actually put barriers to prohibit 3rd party integration. There is no exit strategy.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: milking the enterprise

      Microsoft still has many years until its big cash cows are gone.

      It will be a slow and dragged-out process ...

      And it will be excruciating while they wring the last drop of blood out of the few that remain with them.

  3. Gray
    Unhappy

    Permanent government welfare recipient

    Microsoft will endure for many more years, decades, perhaps, thanks to the inertia that is government. Every village, town, city, county, state, and federal office, all agencies from smallest to largest, are captured in the behemoth's grip. As long as governments have access to the taxpayer money trough, there's no reason to switch. And endless litanies of excuses why they can't/won't/shouldn't/couldn't ... with MS shoveling in additional reams of reasons not.

    The most difficult part for MS management will be finding that thin line between acceptable license fee increases, and outraged lashback. My guess is, that line is a lot higher than we think.

    MS: the decapitated dinosaur that will be years & years in dying.

    1. Mag07

      Re: Permanent government welfare recipient

      In the US and probably many Western countries, it probably will. However, MS recent Windows decisions, have inspired quite a few major government institutions in my country to stop and give a swap to an alternate OS a thought - reason? Staff training. Apart from your usual licensing cost, every switch in any public body requires massive training programme. Until now, swapping between Windows, for those that did, meant that training costs were not even note worthy. Xp to Win 7, basic training per department by your Windows support guy took care of it with ease. Any previous version of Windows to 8, might as well teach them how to use a new operating system. Only last week, our equivalent of HMRC announced it will be migrating to Linux, having failed to reach a rational extended XP support and Win7 licensing deal with Microsoft for 45 thousand of it's remaining desktop PCs alone. And that is an institution that was already in process of migrating to Win 7 in the last couple of years in some departments.

      First rational decision in the country for years regarding IT infrastructure financed by public money.

      Now that an institution of that magnitude decided to brave the unknown, we have our Police force and military suddenly waving their arms in the air, us too, us too. Domino effect?

      We're a big country, maybe not particularly important one, however that's a lot money lost for MS for a moment of self indulging arrogance that Win 8 proved to be.

  4. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Holmes

    Nyah Nyah.

    This quarter's results demonstrate the strength of our business, as well as the opportunities we see in a mobile-first, cloud-first world,

    Currently studying Microsoft solution for large-scale deployment.

    There is nothing there except licensing omnishambles, unclear and muddy technological contraptions, anecdotal evidence that "it worked for other companies", proprietary interfaces for no good reason, and extortion. And fear of Microsoft suddenly bringing unpalatable changes to "Improve their technologies".

    It's like an expensive model train set, but you don't get to have model train - just a license ensemble which expires in 3-4 years.

    But it's on because "everyone is already using Microsoft" and the numbers, though big, can be absorbed.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nyah Nyah.

      A bank I worked for couple of years back ran its servers on Windows Server. It worked, although not always very well. Moved to another bank running on Linux (RHEL6 to be exact), wow, what a change. However the desktops were still on Windows, and they worked well.

      My point being: I don't think there is much wrong with running Windows on desktop. If you want to use Windows-only software it makes perfect sense and there is large choice of enterprise administration tools to make the job easier.

      However, if you want to use Windows on server beyond these few critical pieces you need to support your desktops (AD, possibly Exchange) then you are doing it wrong. Of course, for those who only ever used Windows on servers, you do not know what you are missing. This occasional distaste you feel when implementing Microsoft solutions is there for a reason.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nyah Nyah.

        "A bank I worked for couple of years back ran its servers on Windows Server. It worked, although not always very well. Moved to another bank running on Linux (RHEL6 to be exact), wow, what a change"

        Yep been in that nightmare - we eventually moved all the Java based applications from Linux to Windows and it was like night and day. No more memory leaks and ghost processes and random console hangs. Everything just works. Easy visibility of what is going on, easier to manage systems that required fewer staff to manage and automate stuff for, and far fewer security and other updates to have to evaluate and see if they applied to our environment or not. And actually cheaper to license!!

    2. MisterBombastic

      Re: Nyah Nyah.

      Who'll support your open-source project if you go that route then? OSS = no responsibility for when it all breaks down, heartbleed style. Really, the larger the project the more important it becomes that someone will actually guarantee your stuff will work and despite all the licensing hassle, it's a small price compared to having no guarantees your project will even work now & in the future too.

      1. fandom

        Re: Nyah Nyah.

        "Who'll support your open-source project if you go that route then?"

        If you don't know what RHEL6 means you can always bing it before posting.

      2. Hans 1

        Re: Nyah Nyah.

        "someone will actually guarantee your stuff will work and despite all the licensing hassle" on Windows ? Really ? LOL, just ... LOL.

        One very fine example, you were a complete retard 13 years ago and went the "all microsoft" route, hired in some techies from Accenture who made this web app for you, works great in ie6.

        In 2007, six years on you are still using this app, however, because, well, it only works in ie6 and ie6 is being phased out you have a problem. So you call Microsoft, what do they say ? Sure, sir, here is a patch to ie8 that will let your code run .... No, you hire Accenture in for a complete rewrite.

        Oh, and this beautiful word document created in Office 2000, you open it in 2003 and shit, for some reason, all the formatting is f'd up, how did that happen - don't get me started on 2007. The CTO want Office 2007, however, since he is using that, he cannot exchange documents anymore with the others without ritual sacrifices, because the docs do not display right. And some native docx files cannot be opened in Office 2003 with the converter bs addon, so you upgrade all users to Office 2007, train them to Windows Vista/7/8/you name it. How did you get your job ? I wonder ....

        1. Hans 1
          Boffin

          Re: Nyah Nyah.

          Oh, I am still running the same gnome as in 2001 (gnome 2), it has the very latest patches - no new learning curve for me - everything is as it used to be. Go and compare XP to 7 or even, god forbid, 8 ... my office suite still has the same menu system, my browser as well ... no ribbon or Alt key presses to display the menu or other BS - exactly the same ... with 3d rendering added, but that is about it.

      3. DrBobMatthews
        Holmes

        Re: Nyah Nyah.

        Oh Please!! Support from Microsoft? Are we talking the same language here? They can't even write code without numerous errors. Microsoft has moved from being a reasonable technically competent company to a customer destructive marketing company. Support is something that users are treated do every premature release of OS " find the bugs that we missed and at some time down the road we might get around to fixing them! I.E. has always been a sieve and still is a sieve. So please get of your high horse, in comparison to open source, Microsoft is an expensive, money grabbing, disingenuous joke.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nyah Nyah.

      "Currently studying Microsoft solution for large-scale deployment.

      There is nothing there except licensing omnishambles, unclear and muddy technological contraptions"

      The majority of FTSE 500 companies already use Microsoft's solutions for 'large scale deployment' like SCCM and App-V. They are not particularly complex to use, and are quite clear as to their purpose. Maybe your employer just needs to hire someone more competent in your role?

  5. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    Explain "Nadella said in a canned statement. "

    I always thought that cans were for putting worms back in...after they'd been released from a smaller one.

    My bad.

    1. southpacificpom
      Coat

      Re: Explain "Nadella said in a canned statement. "

      I thought it said "Nutella said in a canned statement. "

  6. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    With margins like that…

    … you can see why they've still changed so little and are still resistant to any real change.

    There's a chance of an inflexion point if someone comes up with an alternative to Windows that is so popular with OEMs that they drop volume licensing deals (cheaper but you pay for a licence on every machine). Can't see anything like that just yet but who knows what may be round the corner?

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