Microsoft reported a rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, boosted by strong sales of its Windows operating system, and the company raised its full-year profit outlook, sending its shares up 4 percent,” Daisuke Wakabayashi reports for Reuters.
“Net profit in its fiscal second quarter rose to $4.7 billion, or 50 cents per diluted share, from $2.6 billion, or 26 cents per diluted share, in the year-ago period. Revenue rose 30 percent to $16.37 billion,” Wakabayashi reports. “Analysts, on average, had forecast Microsoft to earn 46 cents per share on revenue of $15.94 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.”
“The second-quarter revenue and profit growth rates are exaggerated by results in the year-ago period when Microsoft deferred more than $1 billion in net income due to delays in releasing Windows Vista and Office 2007, which hit stores in early 2007,” Wakabayashi reports.
“For the fiscal year ending in June, Microsoft lifted its outlook. It now expects earnings per share to range between $1.85 and $1.88 per share, up from its previous estimate of $1.78 to $1.81,” Wakabayashi reports.
“Microsoft’s results and raised forecasts come on the heels of disappointing outlooks from technology bellwethers Intel Corp. and Apple Inc., which sent shivers through an already jittery stock market,” Wakabayashi reports.
“For the current quarter, Microsoft said earnings per share would range between 43 cents and 45 cents per share on revenue ranging from $14.3 billion to $14.6 billion,” Wakabayashi reports. “Wall Street analysts, on average, are predicting Microsoft will earn 44 cents a share in the March quarter on revenue of $14.4 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.”
“In after-hours trade, Microsoft shares rose to $34.60, after closing up 4 percent in regular Nasdaq trade at $33.25, ” Wakabayashi reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: 5:30pm EST: In After-hours trading, Apple (AAPL) is up $1.98, or 1.46% to $137.58.
When you are in bed with PC manufacturers dumping crap Vista in these machines, no wonder they can make a statement like that.
Then again, I really don’t believe this forecast anyway.
As far as the street is concerned right now, whats good for msft is good for aapl
Apple make nice products, so do Microsoft. As a company Microsoft runs that much deeper and has an understanding of the whole market, not just the kids, so in economic times like these they are bound to come to the fore.
If the boost in 2nd Qtr profits is largely exaggerated due to deferred revenue from last year, how is that such great news?
Greybeard = Moron
indeed
STEVE-O really dropped the ball on lowering Apple’s guidance for the quarter. The stock needed a hand and he let it flop. He really needed a boost after a lackluster Macworld. I just try to imagine what future iphones will look like after seeing the macbook Air….those suckers should really be slim :0)
Apparently the only reason this was posted about Microsoft was so that MDN would have an excuse to tell us that Apple is up 1.98 in AH. lol
@msr – your retort was so perceptive it’s made me completely realign my thinking and I’m also considering relinquishing my Cambridge doctorate, you Cretin.
Indeed.
You Mac Lemons are all going down. Sell the company and give the profits back to shareholders…
Our Gain. Your Pain™
greybeard = moron with a degree
ZT = <3
mw = money
LOL.. in other news water is wet. How can a company not profit when they have a government approve monopoly? OH wait, they must have a positive outlook/forecast with all the new updated super cool feature rich cutting edge Zunes and soon the Zphone. Yep the iPhone KILLER!
Wow, Microsoft’s stock moved? Isn’t been stuck in the $30 range for a loooong time…
I wonder who MS payed to get that into the press?
ericdano it only appeared to move because it is flatulent …
@Greybeard, so you think Microsoft make nice products do you? Mmm…..well then, it’s a shame your degree wasn’t from the same University of Life as S Jobs, it may have carried more weight!
And by the way, since when did anyone with a Doctorate feel the need to announce it like that? Makes me wonder…
On topic, we know Mickysoft is a cash machine, so no surprises there. For the last five years that has been entirely the result of an historical quirk and it’s vicious monopolistic actions in the previous decade. It has done little or nothing in this century to warrant the income it earns. In fact, if Vista were the measure, it ought rightly to be bust.
The sun shines on a dog’s ass now and then.
The sun shines on a dog’s ass now and then.
Sure it does, the sun reflects off the steaming pile of shiny crap that is Windows Vista right up the dogs ass.
Simple logic and physics.
@CHM,
LOL!
@Greybeard,
I like your honesty. Maybe not your grasp on the marketplace.
Funny how a week can completely change things for all you Mac Fanboys. Where are all those Appleheads bragging on their thousands of shares they bought at $160 (last chance to ever buy again below $160 is all we heard and how it would quickly shoot back to $200 after the earnings announcement!!!!!). How’s that Apple tasting now?
Truth is Vista (and XP) ain’t that bad. I have had 2 Macs and probably 10 PCs over the past 20 years and have not had a Vista (or XP) computer lock-up or major problem in a couple of years. I run McAfee virus protection and firewall and keep all components updated. Right now I have an older Mac G4 that I use for music production since it has a PCI card that works with my ProTools hardware but may soon buy a new Macbook and add Windows to it via Parallels. Both systems stay on for weeks at a time and work great. My Mac sometimes freezes, not sure why and has to be hard booted but no biggie. I love both computers, the Mac and the Sony Vaio tower.
If Windows was THAT bad Apple would have 50% market share quickly but the fact is Windows is no where near as bad as all you fanboys on here like to claim. And that is why MS is making money like a mint. Sure MacOS may be a bit easier than Vista for the novice user but I am very proficient at the PC and Windows and find no major faults with it, neither do the 90+% of the rest of the world that uses Windows so Microsoft is still winning the game, although I do acknowledge Apple has gained some share recently. Only time will tell if the growth will continue or stall at about 7%. From MS’s results it looks like it will be a very long time before they give up significant share and remember MS is much more global and entrenched in developing markets than Apple is.
Needless to say Apple stock is out of favor right now and MS is in favor, quite ironic if you look back only a couple of months ago Apple was $200 and MS was $26, now MS has gained 35% and Apple has lost 35%.
Bottom line is MS and Apple need each other, MS needs Apple to keep them from complete stagnation and AAPL need MS for the Office platform that may be the only way a person could justify buying a Mac for work, so they can share files.
I used the turmoil to pick up a couple hundred shares of AAPL at $128 and my MS stock is up 35% as well. I LOVE TECHNOLOGY! Gonna go get me some GOOGLE too before they take the smart phone business away from the rest.
And I feel sorry for MDN that had to try to look upbeat and positive today by claiming AAPL was up a couple of dollars or so in afterhours trading, after it fell $3.5 today AGAIN! Maybe MS’s positive results can save AAPL from going all the way to $100!!!!
Oh yea, fsck all you Office Mac sellouts.
Excel 2008 is 4x slower than Excel 2004.
HA HA HA!!
I use NeoOffice, it’s snazzy on OS X.
@Sean, Apple didn’t lower guidance, it gave guidance. You can’t lower something, you never gave to begin with.
Apple had good reason to lower expectations for the coming quarter, especially in the light of the current economic climate.
I suspect that Microsoft’s rosy outlook will come back to bite them in the butt (and the butts of their investors) when they announce the results for their fiscal year in June.
@ Reality Checker…
Budlight is the number one beer in the country– In light of that fact your market share argument is lame…
Yeah, the truth hurts doesn’t it?
Last 5 years…
MSFT +150%
AAPL +2016%
@GmanMac
Your analogy of beer to computer technology is especially lame and indicates perhaps you have consumed too many beers over your lifetime!
Hey BUD’s P/E ratio is only 17, better go get me some of that since the industry average is 23.6! Thanks for the stock tip dude!
@Reality Checker…”…have not had a Vista (or XP) computer lock-up or major problem in a couple of years….”
Huh? Vista been out for a couple of years? Have I been in a coma?
@Greybeard…I have a doctorate too…so what? I also have a hangnail, a Nintendo 64 and flatulence.
In one thread, MDN downplays Apple’s stock drop. Pay not attention to Apple’s recent losses.
In this thread, Apple’s stock price is the only thing important.
… and it’s sad that so many posters on this forum blindly follow MDN’s lead.
Microsoft sales are growing because they have figured out a way to sell two operating system copies for every computer that gets sold. They sell and OEM copy of Vista to the box assemblers, then they sell a boxed copy of XP to the poor consumers who need to uninstall Vista and install XP.
Microsoft business practices may be morally reprehensible and their products are clearly functionally and esthetically abysmal, but they definitely know how to suck money out of people’s pockets.
@ Reality’s Checker
Your comment to RC was awesome. I think you got him on both cheeks with that one!!!
“Yeah, the truth hurts doesn’t it?
Last 5 years…
MSFT +150%
AAPL +2016%”
@Reality’s Checker
Come on now, get real! Don’t start throwing out performance unless you are prepared to defend the bigger picture. So you conveniently pick a time window that shows the best performance for Apple and the worst for MS to make your lame argument?? Go back 10 years or more and the story is quite different. How many times richer is Mr. Gates than Mr. Jobs? Who made more in building extraordinary wealth over time? MS has paid dividends as well and the stock has split many more times than Apple. Yes Apple has done remarkably well the last couple of years and MS has been stagnant but the markets don’t lie, Apple’s growth is slowing and their rapid pace of innovations is slowing too. And don’t even get me talking about how many more times Dell has outperformed AAPL over the last decade. So like dynasties companies grow and eventually flatten, some come back and some don’t. Apple has had a great run and I’m sure it will continue to do well but the “hype” is out of the stock now and reality has set-in. That is why I bought it back after selling higher than it is now when the P/E was way up above 30. How much have you lost on paper recently? Jobs has lost over $700 million in a week. That truth has to really suck!
Dearest Zune Tang,
It’s not Lemon’s, it’s Lemmings, you tool!
MS’s earnings just prove that there is money to be made in selling shit.
“not just the kids”
Obviously saying that having no idea the depth of Apple’s core market.
Please Reality Checker, save us from ourselves you enlightened one.
M$ has always been a cash machine. This says things about the US economy being as bad as some fear-mongers would have you believe– gee, election year?
It does not say anything about Apple.
“Apple make nice products, so do Microsoft”
whahuh?
name ONE good MS product. seriously. please.
oh gods….
why is there always one person on ever forum whose name is “reality check” or “realist” or some other pathetic variation, and why is he always the one whose comments least reflect reality?
like the tootsie pop mystery, the world may never know…
Was anyone in this forum born before 2004? Seriously.
Looking at the level of these posts, it’s hard to tell.
@ Shen
Er… Excel. Word. PowerPoint. Years before iWork, you fool.
Get a f*cking grip, people. MS posting profit is not a bad thing, neither is Nokia posting a profit a bad thing. MDN seems to have become a zone for haters.
I love Apple, but before that I loved Commodore and the BASIC written for my PET 2001 was done by… Microsoft.
So all you juvenile idiots simply slamming MS or anyone else from the founding days of the personal computer industry can kiss my butt. You’re all born after 1980 so what the f*ck do you know about anything?
You are – we say in the UK – twats.
Ph.D.? Cambridge?
I could have sworn they taught grammar there!
LOL
I wonder if anyone else has noticed:
MSFT Revenue: 14.7B
AAPL Revenue: 9.7B
MSFT Profit: 4.7B
AAPL Profit: 1.6B
To summarize, Apple is catching up quickly with M$ in terms of revenue and their profit is 1/3 of M$.
Pretty good for a hardware company. I hope M$ keeps on pouring money down the drain with money losers like Xbox.
Did they give any details in regards to how many Zunes they sold?
Does anybody know any more than 3 people (apart from Zune Tang and his alter egos) that have windows vista? Maybe I don’t know many people but I can count 2 people I know how run it. Odd (but reassuring nonetheless). Maybe since windows xp sales were probably bottoming out before vista came it might explain the upswing in profit…or maybe they’re just charging more?
@doggone
based on you numbers, microsh*t is vastly more profitable (in relative terms) then apple. Microsh*t profit = 32% of revenue, apple = 16.5% of revenue. Guess there’s more money in software…well, microsh*’t’s vague approximation thereof…
AAPL’s rise to 200 at the end of the year was psychological (and a bit of window dressing) much like oil’s rise to 100. Now that the year is fresh, the market movers sold off their shares regardless of AAPL’s earnings to artificially deflate the share price so that they can buy it back in phases enabling them to fudge great returns with their mutual funds. AAPL is one of those stocks whose price is easily manipulated because they are the step-child in the tech industry. With YOY double digit growth and phenomenal accelerating growth with key products, it’s almost a guarantee that the “big boys” can show their clients that they made “smart investments” by using AAPL to get another double digit (if not triple) gain this calendar year.
“Our Gain. Your Pain.™”
Heh. That could actually be Microsoft’s real slogan.
And I first thought the headline was about MS dumping Outlook.
Rise in profits = more suckers conned and blackmailed into using windows software.
Poor suckers… one day you will learn.
Sheeeezzzzzeeeee. Apple post record profits and gets canned in the market. MicroCrap misses the market guess and gets praises.
It just goes to show you what crap is going on. 🙁
Its like the Titanic as it sails. Everything looks up, but we know where that ended up going.
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@Greybeard
I have to say Kudos for your doctorate from Cambridge You obviously earned that (what was it in?) No doubt you understand something about Microsoft. But to say “Apple make nice products, so do Microsoft” in the same sentence is an insult to Apple’s innovation over the past four decades.
Apple have made game changing products. Apple I and Apple II gave us the first Personal Computer with a keyboard and monitor. The Lisa and consequently the Mac gave us the first GUI based personal computers. (The Xerox Star was a prototype and very different. They did not have a production machine at that time as Zerox didn’t take it seriously). The iPod and iTunes music store gave us a convenient way to buy music with a high quality mass storage device to listen to it on. The iPhone changed the way manufacturers design mobile phone interfaces.
Microsoft have only ever made me-too products like Windows, The Zune, And now a silly table with cameras in it that is too expensive for virtually anyone. The only decent product they make is the Xbox (which I believe they bought – like the Zune) and consequently make a huge loss on.
The only way M$ can make money is to use various unethical monopolistic business practices and strong-arm tactics to muscle the PC manufacturers into bundling Windows with PCs and consequently take the choice away from the user as to whether they have a UNIX derivative or Windows on their new machines.
I suggest you research the history of Apple and Microsoft and take into consideration the fact that out of the box, All versions of Windows is useless in the internet without the addition of third party security add-ons.
So how can you say Microsoft have nice anything?
Still, I don’t have a doctorate so what so I know eh!!!
What everybody seems to forget are the huge expanding markets in Asia, i.e. India and China.
Microsoft has the lion’s share of the computer market there.
That’s why they’re increasing their profits. But that doesn’t effect Apple adversely at all.
More and more people are switching in the U.S., Europe, Australasia and Japan, and eventually that trend will start in China and India – when the Apple dealers are there.
The larger the playing-field the more rewards for Apple.
I was just thinking, M$ is doing good because PC makers don’t have any viable alternative, except maybe some version of Linux.
I know we have been through this before, but what if
Apple decided to sell OS X to PC makers this year?
I bet most of them including Dell and Sony would make a switch.
Outlook for M$ wouldn’t be so good, I don’t think they could survive something like this.
Apple has a lot of cash right now and could risk it, they have other cash cows besides Mac line, this is not like the 90’s situation so it could work.
Maybe Apple could buy Sony and sell them Apples…Sonys with OS X pre-installed
Re RC…. “So you conveniently pick a time window that shows the best performance for Apple and the worst for MS to make your lame argument??”
You mean… a convenient time window like, say, the last FIVE YEARS as opposed to a couple months?
Sounds like you’re the one wanting to avoid seeing the bigger picture by looking at a “convenient” short-term window
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You realize of course, than no short-term window will stop Apple’s runaway success, nor stop Microsoft’s painful cartwheel down the stairs (long and profitable though it may be), nor stop trolls from being instantly recognizable for their green skin and living in their mama’s basements under bridges.
Wait… I forgot that even this LAST quarter looked good for Apple–their best ever in fact. So… what’s your “convenient” window… a couple days long?
I’ll stick with the years-long facts. Sorry if that history doesn’t look so good for your beloved Microsoft. It points to the future whether you like it or not.
@Reality’s Nighmare
Keep talking and living in denial while AAPL stock continues to drop each day and MS continues to go up. History, regardless of which time window you choose, LAST quarter, one month, one decade or whatever is of little validity. LAST quarter’s numbers for AAPL are history. Markets don’t give a damn about LAST quarter, rather they look out 6-9 months and they see big storm clouds on the horizon for Apple. The iPhone has not taken root overseas which is really where most of the future growth will be. Here in the US AT&T;activated fewer iPhones in the 4th qtr thanthey did in the 3rd qtr indicating saturation is occuring with that product here or else users are waiting for 3G and GPS on the next version, by the way something Jobs had nothing to say about at the keynote. Lack of 3G, GPS and a good 4-5 mp camera may fly here in the low-tech US cell phone market but not in Europe or Asia. Nokia and Sony-Ericsson, already well entrenched there, are going to trounce Apple in those overseas markets and already have a technology advantage over Apple. Open SDK means squat in the US when Apple is tied to AT&T;for 2 more years, an eternity in the technology biz. Could that be why so many iPhones are not being activated by AT&T;, people wnat choices? As other phone providers like Verizon unbundle the handsets this year from the service Apple will be stuck with AT&T;for years. I’m not even going to go into the Google Adroid scenarios which will also challenge Apple seriously in 2008.
Apple is in serious need of some good news like a new iPhone announcement or similar. A new, lame, feature-lacking laptop and updating AppleTV is not enough for the over-hyped investors. When good news does finally happen expect a huge runup in the shares, exactly why I bought back in to the stock recently.
Anybody see any figures for xp sales in the fourth quarter? Would be interesting