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Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

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Re: Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

#31

Post by ehutch79 »

brudgers wrote: post #29
dean wrote: post #6

The stock market is all about the future, not the past. A lot of people see Microsoft's future as being less profitable than its past. That's why people belittle it. Microsoft makes a ton of money, no one will deny that, but they make less money than they used to. It's funny how the OP shows the financial numbers for one quarter and says the "the trend here is clear". You can't determine a trend on one quarter, you h…

> "The stock market" Microsoft isn't beholden to the stock market in the way Google or Apple are. The two largest shareholders are Gates and Balmer. They have about 9% of the company between them - that's more than the three largest institutional investors. As part of Dow Jones Industrial Average, many index funds have to hold Microsoft stock and have a strong disincentive to create turmoil which might drive the pric…

9%... sooo the stock market holds 91%, sounds like it's beholden to me.

Re: Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

#32

Post by bgilroy26 »

mrb wrote: post #27
kitsune_ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market does not think. It is neither efficient nor rational. If the stock market is about the future, then how do you interpret Goldman Sachs' share price of $235 in November 2007? 1 year later it fell to $53. A company's share price will tell you nothing about the actual financial stability or future of the company.

This man is absolutely right. The stock market is rarely rational. This is exploited by value investors , like myself, who invest in companies that are undervalued for no reason.

>value investors

Just following your logic here, value investors bank on the market's eventual rationality?

Or is it rather that a company who is undervalued for no real reason today might be overvalued for no real reason tomorrow?

Re: Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

#33

Post by SoftwareMaven »

joshAg wrote: post #13
maybird wrote: post #3

(229) M Entertainment and Devices How did they lose money on Xbox?

Consoles are sold at a loss, so that more people will buy the console (licensing fees are proportional to the size of the audience/consumer base). Even the PS3 when it first came out at $600 was a loss leader; if i'm remembering right for the PS3, the cost of the hardware was something close to $1000. Companies expect to make that money back through 1st party game sales and licensing fees from 3rd party developers fo…

That doesn't explain the loss at all. The 360 is liely not costing more to build at this point in its lifecycle and all the games are actively paying their royalties.

The Xbox is profitable. The problem is the other businesses lumped in with them.

Re: Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

#34

Post by [deleted] »

brudgers wrote: post #29
dean wrote: post #6

The stock market is all about the future, not the past. A lot of people see Microsoft's future as being less profitable than its past. That's why people belittle it. Microsoft makes a ton of money, no one will deny that, but they make less money than they used to. It's funny how the OP shows the financial numbers for one quarter and says the "the trend here is clear". You can't determine a trend on one quarter, you h…

> "The stock market" Microsoft isn't beholden to the stock market in the way Google or Apple are. The two largest shareholders are Gates and Balmer. They have about 9% of the company between them - that's more than the three largest institutional investors. As part of Dow Jones Industrial Average, many index funds have to hold Microsoft stock and have a strong disincentive to create turmoil which might drive the pric…

[deleted]

Re: Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

#35

Post by dcurtis »

mrb wrote: post #30

"Microsoft's execution in mobile has been excellent". This could not be farther from reality. Microsoft has consistently lost money in the mobile market, to a point they are ashamed of it, and don't even give sale figures for the Windows Phone OS anymore. Profits from this business unit is reported in the "Entertainment and Devices" unit, which has turned a loss this quarter, again, of $229M. The only argument the au…

This isn't really an issue that you can take an extreme on. Even in relative "failure," Microsoft has executed correctly in mobile.

Actually, their execution has been way better than I would have expected. It is losing money, sure, but short term losses are not important when you're talking about entering a market as large as the mobile phone market after the existing players are firmly entrenched. The traditional metrics of success only matter after you've been successful.

Re: Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

#36

Post by Smudge »

dcurtis wrote: post #35
mrb wrote: post #30

"Microsoft's execution in mobile has been excellent". This could not be farther from reality. Microsoft has consistently lost money in the mobile market, to a point they are ashamed of it, and don't even give sale figures for the Windows Phone OS anymore. Profits from this business unit is reported in the "Entertainment and Devices" unit, which has turned a loss this quarter, again, of $229M. The only argument the au…

This isn't really an issue that you can take an extreme on. Even in relative "failure," Microsoft has executed correctly in mobile. Actually, their execution has been way better than I would have expected. It is losing money, sure, but short term losses are not important when you're talking about entering a market as large as the mobile phone market after the existing players are firmly entrenched. The traditional me…

Yep. Microsoft sold the Xbox at a loss and didn't turn a profit from it until 2008 - 6 years after it first edged its way into the market.

By that metric, it's way too soon to call Microsoft's mobile execution a failure.

Re: Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

#37

Post by seanmcdirmid »

georgemcbay wrote: post #18
maybird wrote: post #3

(229) M Entertainment and Devices How did they lose money on Xbox?

They didn't lose money on the 360 (this past quarter anyway, clearly they did for a first few years of the device's life), they lost it on winding down the remnants of Zune and ramping up Windows Phone. Also, while the 360 is still king of the consoles in terms of overall sales and is profitable, it is selling less quickly than before because this console generation is past its peak and is riding the downward slope o…

However, 360 is only net positive now on a per quarter basis, which only counts current costs against current revenue. That doesn't count the initial investments made on R&D for the 360 or its predecessor. When you look at it from that perspective, "success" is much more difficult to claim.

Re: Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

#38

Post by MartinCron »

bgilroy26 wrote: post #32
mrb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This man is absolutely right. The stock market is rarely rational. This is exploited by value investors , like myself, who invest in companies that are undervalued for no reason.

>value investors Just following your logic here, value investors bank on the market's eventual rationality? Or is it rather that a company who is undervalued for no real reason today might be overvalued for no real reason tomorrow?

I don't remember who first said it, but it's worth repeating, "the market can stay stupid longer than you can stay solvent"

Re: Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

#39

Post by [deleted] »

dm8 wrote: post #24
rpikeca wrote: post #21

Blamer should have been gone a long time ago. They have lost some real visionaries because of him and lost site of what they are in the market to provide.

Why? Kinect and Xbox came to fruition under his leadership. And that division alone can become billion dollar business for MSFT. Agreed WP7 was late but MSFT takes pride in being late to any market. After all, they are last man standing in most of the markets. Zune failed but can't he have couple of failures? Btw, their core enterprises business is growing.

[deleted]

Re: Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

#40

Post by recoiledsnake »

dean wrote: post #6

The stock market is all about the future, not the past. A lot of people see Microsoft's future as being less profitable than its past. That's why people belittle it. Microsoft makes a ton of money, no one will deny that, but they make less money than they used to. It's funny how the OP shows the financial numbers for one quarter and says the "the trend here is clear". You can't determine a trend on one quarter, you h…

>The stock market is all about the future, not the past. A lot of people see Microsoft's future as being less profitable than its past. That's why people belittle it.

Google's stock is worth less than what it was 4 years ago, it has also basically stagnated.

> but they make less money than they used to

No, they make more money in absolute terms than they used to. Their margins went down because they're investing more in mobile and tablets.

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