Microsoft: What do you do with $49 billion?
Reuters | at | by Mike
Microsoft, with its global dominance in PC software, is sometimes said to have a license to print money. But Microsoft might find it tougher to deploy its cash hoard of $49 billion.
When it released fiscal-year 2003 results last Thursday, Microsoft said it added $2.9 billion of cash in the quarter ended June 30. It earned $689 million from investments, nearly one-third of its pre-tax income, according to its fiscal fourth-quarter income statement. And on its balance sheet, Microsoft reported $13.7 billion in equity and other investments for the period ended June 30, 2003.
This Thursday, at its Redmond, Washington, campus, Chief Financial Officer John Connors is expected to tell analysts how Microsoft invests its cash.