Of Profits and Perception at Microsoft
WinInfo | at | by Mike
Couched as it was with the news that the company has already sold over 32 million copies of Windows XP, Microsoft's quarterly earnings announcement late last week was met with confusion, even by seasoned financial analysts. One the one hand, the company had posted a strong profit--$2.74 billion, an increase of 12 percent year-over-year--but Microsoft's revenues of $7.25 billion fell short of analyst's expectations of $7.34 billion, the first time the company had ever done so. To add to the problems, Microsoft said that earnings for the next two quarters would fall short of previous estimates.