** Reply to message from Mike Marion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Thu, 15 May 2008 10:53:51 -0700
> Actually, IINM, their office div makes pantloads of cash too. What > with the upgrade treadmill and "standard" they've helped shove down > the throats of so many via businesses and their closed formats for > years. That productline leverages Windows market position and would probably collapse without the tie to the Windows OS. They bring in some profits from the server side too but you nailed it, most all profits come from the Windows OS and MS Office. With billions lost every year for the last 20+ years and no new profit making businesses since MS Office over 15 years ago. > But the rest of the company does basically hemorrhage cash. The xbox > div is a perfect example. Even without the pathetic hw failure rates, > they weren't making money, but I can't imagine how much it's losing > when that's factored in. I'm sure it's taking some interesting > bookkeeping to hide the true failure rates and losses from them. They played a trick a few years ago when they cut back on their R&D funding by $3.2 billion and magically a few product lines showed momentary profits the following couple of quarters. They then went back to the typical ~$250 mil quarterly losses. ReOrg's have always been a great tool at moving losses and cash around and they seem to do it about every 3 years so so. And don't forget, there have been a few court cases where the offended company had legal rights to open Microsofts books and they settled every time just prior to that actually happening. Nvidia's XBox payment problems and Microsofts giving out Spyglass's software as MS Internet Explorer are two which come to mind. Without Windows, Microsoft is a house built of cards and it is the main reason they will do everything and anything to protect it. But you'll notice this is not part of the Yahoo Proxy fight so you know it's a money grab for those looking to take over the Yahoo Board and hand the company over to Microsoft. They can't be that stupid and think this is going to be the first Microsoft project to make profits outside of the Microsoft Windows umbrella. Can they? Doug -- KPLUG-List@kernel-panic.org http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
