
Windows drops to No. 3 cash-cow status in Microsoft' latest quarter - cooldeal
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/windows-drops-to-no-3-cash-cow-status-in-microsoft-latest-quarter/11696
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angelbob
It's worth noting that Windows Server lives in a different category, and so it
actually counts _against_ Windows being a cash cow in this case. Its category,
which includes SQL Server, is the one that beat out "Windows and Windows
Live".

To put it another way, Windows was partially beaten by another Windows for
cash cow status.

So don't count it out just yet.

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jamesredman
Actually the Windows division of Microsoft is still the second most profitable
division of Microsoft. The Windows divison is 3rd in revenue, 2nd in cash.

The title is misleading.

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dredmorbius
"Cash" and "revenues" are largely interchangeable (modulo financing and
billing practices).

Did you mean "revenues" vs. "gross/net profit"?

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vm
Cash and Revenues are two totally different things on financial statements,
like the ones pictured in the article. jamesredman is completely right that
the article is incorrectly titled. Cash cow refers to something that generates
free cash flow and this article misinterprets that to mean revenues, which
actually have costs associated with them and don't represent cash flows.

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dredmorbius
That would be a distinction. Wasn't entirely clear to me in jamesredman's
post.

Thanks.

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jackfoxy
Sure would like to know where Visual Studio falls in this. I would think
giving away all versions of VS would only benefit Windows and Server sales by
encouraging more developers.

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dangrossman
Visual Studio is part of that Server and Tools division's $4.8 billion in
revenue.

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jackfoxy
I suspected as much, but how much of that $4.8?

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dangrossman
I don't think they ever directly publish that, but they did publish in 2010,
producers of Visual Studio extensions brought in over $400 million in revenue.
Considering the people buying those extensions have a full version of Visual
Studio, and the cost of VS and MSDN subscriptions, I would not be surprised if
those two things account for _most_ of that $5 billion.

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famousactress
Wow. In that case, it seems like it ought to be tempting to double the cost of
Visual Studio and give non-business copies of Windows away.

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angelbob
You'd think. But that would reduce the number of Windows developers, so doing
that would be eating the seed corn.

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perfunctory
What does Microsoft Business Division do?

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timbre
Office.

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pge
Don't forget Sharepoint as well. From what I understand, it is a major source
of revenue growth right now.

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_investigator
Consumers can easily see alternatives to MS products are better. It's only a
matter of time; MS lost that contest.

They are now resigned to use bogus patents to get a piece of the future they
will not otherwise be a part of. The alternatives to their ridiculous
continous upgrade path are more functional, easy enough to use and more cost
effective. When we manage to show this to business market, MS is in big
trouble. Cost effectiveness and ease of deployment and use. MS can be beaten
on these fronts. And they will be. In time.

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saturdaysaint
Blaming the decline in Windows revenue on the floods? Priceless. You can't get
around the fact that they're facing their first real competition in the
consumer PC space and that for a lot of consumer use cases, the average $500
Windows laptop compares pretty poorly to a tablet.

