Posted on 07/19/2012 3:36:24 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Selling an UNDERVALUED stock! Sounds like something an 0bama economic advisor would do!
One curious aspect of Server 2012 is the reliance on Powershell v3 versus GUIs for management. I see a similar trend in W8. They say you “Have to” know powershell v3 to effectively manage Server 2012 machines in an enterprise. Same with Exchange 2010. Not good.
MS went from the command line to GUI now back to the command line.
I expect Windows 9 to be a $500 book of Unix commands with the Preface titled: “How to Build This OS Yourself You Lazy MF-ers!”
Not really:
The graph is for world wide desktop, laptop and tablet systems.
As far as only Americans using Windows, Microsoft's biggest markets today are overseas.
http://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-reports-first-loss-public-company-200908715—finance.html?_esi=1
Microsoft reports first loss as public company
LOS ANGELES (AP) Microsoft has posted its first quarterly loss in its 26 years as a public company as it declared a struggling online ad business a bust and prepared for one of the biggest product updates in its history.
The software company had warned two weeks ago that it would take a $6.2 billion charge in the April-June quarter because its 2007 purchase of online ad service aQuantive failed to help it compete with Google Inc. The amount reflected the bulk of the $6.3 billion it paid for aQuantive.
The purchase of aQuantive, Microsoft’s most expensive deal at the time, was supposed to help Microsoft boost its online ad business and mount a more serious challenge to Google. But the division housing aQuantive continued to post losses totaling more than $9 billion since the company bought aQuantive, not including the charge.
By contrast, Google has widened its lead in the growing online ad market, thanks in part to its purchase of DoubleClick for $3.2 billion about eight months after Microsoft took control of aQuantive.
Google’s search engine, a major vehicle for selling ads, has remained strong, while Microsoft’s Bing search engine saw its market share drop slightly to 26 percent, from 27 percent a year ago. The Bing figures include searches through business partner Yahoo Inc., which has been using Microsoft’s search technology for nearly two years.
The aQuantive setback didn’t faze investors, who have been used to years of troubles in Microsoft’s online ad business. Investors usually focus on what lies ahead for a company instead of dwelling on past mistakes. Despite the loss, Microsoft’s stock was up 72 cents, or 2.4 percent, at $31.39 in after-hours trading following the announcement.
Microsoft’s fortunes are now tied to the Oct. 26 release of Windows 8, the most extreme redesign of the company’s flagship operating system since 1995. Windows 8 will feature a new look and boast new technology that will enable the operating system to work on touch-controlled tablet computers, as well as Microsoft’s traditional stronghold of desktop and laptop computers. In conjunction with Windows 8, Microsoft is planning to release its own tablet, the Surface.
A revamped version of another lucrative franchise, Microsoft’s Office software that bundles word processing, spreadsheet and email programs, is also in the works. Earlier this week, Microsoft previewed how the next version of Office will work on tablet computers running on Windows 8.
Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., has never previously reported a quarterly loss since the company went public in March 1986.
The $6.2 billion charge is a non-cash adjustment, which companies do when the value of their assets decline. Companies have to review their assets once a year, and the just-ended quarter is Microsoft’s final one for fiscal 2012.
With the charge, Microsoft had a $492 million loss in the fiscal fourth quarter, or 6 cents a share. That compares with earnings of $5.9 billion, or 69 cents, a year ago.
Revenue rose 4 percent to $18.06 billion.
Excluding the adjustment and the deferral of some revenue related to Windows 8, earnings came to 73 cents per share, beating the 62 cents per share expected by analysts polled by FactSet.
Although the earnings were higher than expected, analysts were looking for higher revenue at $18.15 billion.
With Windows 8-powered devices still a few months away, some prospective PC buyers have been postponing their purchases so they can buy the latest technology from Microsoft this fall. Microsoft said PC sales were flat in the just-ended quarter, and revenue in Microsoft’s Windows division has now dropped in five of the past seven quarters.
The pressure won’t be on Microsoft until Windows 8 is released in three months. Investors will then be closely watching to see if the new operating system delivers on its goal of making Microsoft a significant player in a tablet computer market dominated by Apple’s iPad, while also helping boost PC sales.
The high hopes for Windows 8 are the main reason Microsoft’s stock has climbed about 18 percent this year as of Thursday’s closing price of $30.67.
he didn’t read that MS bought a software company for billions that has a “better” interface for touch screens...some real insider - not.
“Not really”.
He may have been thinking of world wide installation of web servers, in which case linux/unix do have the vast number of installs.
I still run Linux, but a KDE based distro now. I think Microsoft is about to learn the same lesson Ubuntu is learning - if you try to please everyone, no-one will like it.
Yes, the numbers for web servese are about 60+% Unix variants, and 36% or so Windows.
However, the article is about Windows 8, which is a client system.
I’m teaching a Linux Fundamentals class next week, and I love it. Been installing Fedora 17 all day...
Yes, the numbers for web servers are about 60+% Unix variants, and 36% or so Windows.
However, the article is about Windows 8, which is a client system.
I’m teaching a Linux Fundamentals class next week, and I love it. Been installing Fedora 17 all day...
Uh, I’ve got two degrees in computer science, 40 years experience in computing and networking, and 15 years experience with PCs and Windows, and I wasn’t too much better off than that guy’s dad. Within 30 minutes of installing W8, I literally wanted to scream and throw heavy objects at my computer. Trying to use W8 CP wasn’t an academic exercise for me either. I needed to port a large amount of code to it as well as be prepared to support my customers in the future.
I finally just gave up. But I did come back a few weeks later and installed Classic Shell to restore the Start Menu, as well as inventing novel hacks to the registry that no one else had done in order to automatically skip Metro UI to go right to the real desktop on W8 Consumer Preview. (The hacks were difficult because the methods used to skip Metro UI on Developer Preview had been deliberately disabled by Microsoft.)
I predict W8 will be a bigger disaster for MS than Windows 95/98/Me and Vista combined. I can’t wait to see the new Apple ads impugning Metro UI: “If you think Vista was bad, have you tried Metro UI yet?” All they’d have to do is film a bunch of folks using Metro UI the first time and then extract a montage. It would be funnier than a barrel of monkeys and quite instructive too.
I will be buying some LEAP PUTS on MS and on PC ETFs if MS does indeed release W8 as it stands now.
I have Win8 installed in a VM. It's a complete disaster. For example:
MS is going to sell upgrades from Vista for $35. This is the cheapest MS upgrade ever. However there are some serious limitations on the hardware, so probably nobody will buy the upgrades. Usability-wise, Win8 cannot be used by anyone, period. The only exception is people who have very basic computer needs - such as all they want is to run a browser. But those people will not buy a desktop anyway.
Windows 7 is the best OS that MS produced so far. If you don't care about the latest technologies then WinXP will work for you. Win8 ... stay away. Those guys are right to sell the MS stock. It's not just the fact that Win8 will be a total loss. The worst is the fact that MS is operated by a bunch of narcissistic idiots who think that they can change the way the world works (on PCs.) A company like that is in much bigger trouble than just a failure of one product.
P.S. Their lack of wisdom does not limit itself to Windows OS. MS already hurried up and produced MS Visual Studio 2012 RC that I also have. The developers were so stupid that they picked a color scheme where you can't tell elements apart. It looks ugly as sin, and it is hard on the eyes. Those guys simply lost their mind (assuming that they had it at some point.)
Wow! Thanks for that info. A lot has changed in past years. For a while 'back when' Linux was quite large in Europe and much of the 'East' while very few used used MS Windows - particularly their college kids.
Also particularly interesting to me is the inclusion of iPad, iPhone and Android as OS - since I don't think of these things as 'computers' in their own right - but they can get on the internet, so perhaps that's the reason they are included.
However, I think the graph misses the huge number of linux machines that act as servers on the net, both here in the US and more so in Europe.
'Nuff said - I'll by 7 rather than try to survive on XP after they quit supporting it (soon, I read somewhere.)
That should have been, ‘I’ll buy 7’ - too fast on post without re-read. ~grin~
It will fail miserably.
What the Hell were they thinking??
OSX’s headed the same way.It’s frustrating.
Those of us who use PC’s for our profession are being downgraded, I’m afraid.
Ed
“Im teaching a Linux Fundamentals class next week, and I love it.”
Sounds fun! Where are you teaching it, at a community center? A church? School?
PS. I just checked your Freeper page... Thank you for your service to our country!
Knowing your background, I’ll take your recommendation to read “Alas, Babylon” seriously — given the stuff you must know about...
When someone as yourself (who can do registry hacks!) is frustrated using Windows 8, then this thing is a Titanic in the making.
Question is: will the iceberg take down the ship?
I teach at a university... Usually, Microsoft type courses on servers, services, and clients, so Linux is a fun break for me-—I am a Linux fanboy!
“Im teaching a Linux Fundamentals class next week, and I love it.”
Programmer going on 14 years now. I spend 10 hours a day on our RHE servers (ok, a few debian and fedora builds..).
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