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We knew that Microsoft's quarter was going to be a rough one after it announced a $7.6 billion write-down of the Devices and Services division it purchased from Nokia last year, and so it has come to pass: on revenue of $22.2 billion, the company had a gross margin of $14.7 billion, an operating loss of $2.05 billion, a net after-tax loss of $3.20 billion, and a $0.40 loss per share.
This was driven by a $7.5 billion goodwill and asset impairment charge from Nokia Devices and Services, coupled with a new $0.78 billion restructuring charge, and a further $0.16 billion cost for integration and previously announced restructuring. In total, the company booked $8.4 billion of losses in the quarter.
This loss eclipses the $0.49 billion loss in that fourth quarter of its 2012 fiscal year that was driven largely by the $6.2 billion write-down of the aQuantive advertising firm.
But even absent that massive hit, the quarter wasn't a good one. That $22.2 billion of revenue is down 5 percent on the same quarter last year, and excluding the one-off Nokia charges, operating income was $6.39 billion, down 3 percent year on year. The company's Device and Consumer segment was down sharply, as sales of non-volume-licensed Windows and Office continued their fall on the back of a weak PC market: Windows license revenue from OEM preinstalls was down 22 percent, and consumer sales of Office were down 42 percent. Windows Phone revenue was down an even sharper 68 percent, due to a decrease in royalty payments, though sales of Lumia hardware were up more than 10 percent to 8.4 million, compared to 7.5 million in the same quarter a year ago.
Microsoft (MS) Office has always been a main revenue engine for them, so the 42 percent drop in consumer sales may be the most sobering part of the report, not so much for total sales (corporate are what's important) but as a canary in the coal mine for Office.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @06:39PM
if linux had the driver support windows has
Linux supports more devices than any other OS.
It's a point of pride with gregkh and The Linux Driver Project.
Linux supports old gear that Windoze stopped supporting several versions back and Linux supports new stuff that old (obsolete, unsupported) versions of Windoze never did support.
you WOULD be able to do the HAIRYFEET challenge
The Hairyfeet Challenge is simply an anti-Linux crusader trolling by using rare edge cases.
He knows it's crap.
He knows that the only gear that meets his challenge is the stuff with closed-source-only drivers produced by crappy Write-once/Monetize-forever vendors that are typical in the Windoze realm.
To verify his challenge, you have to SPECIFICALLY go looking for those crap brands when you buy a peripheral.
He knows that too.
linux would have a better share of the market
That's not at all about technical proficiency.
It's about the clause M$ puts into its contracts with retailers:
**Mustn't harm the brand** or some such.
Displaying a Linux box beside a BSoD, reboot-reboot-reboot Windoze box will definitely make a box running M$'s junk look inferior.
Can't have that.
Bulk licensing with whitebox builders has long been the stranglehold M$ had.
Places like Brazil and Reunion (island off Madagascar) are examples of breaking the old paradigm.
Chromeboxes running a spin of Linux kicked pre-installed Windoze's ass last Christmas.
M$ also has a deal with hardware manufacturers that if you want your drivers included in the newest Windoze version, you have to hold back any Linux drivers for 6 months after a new Windoze version comes out.
This is all under NDA, of course, so those vendors can't discuss it with you.
...and, of course, with a LTS distro like a RedHat derivative or an Ubuntu LTS derivative you get years and years before his claim kicks in (again, with the purposely-selected crappy brands).
-- gewg_