It seems as if
Nokia's not the only mega-corp on the block with good news to proclaim to Wall Street today, as the giant from Redmond is proudly announcing record second quarter results and pinpointing "robust holiday sales and enterprise demand drive" as the culprit. In the three months ending December 31, 2007, Microsoft pulled in some $16.37 billion in revenue and $6.48 billion in operating income, which translated to 30-percent and 87-percent growth in each area, respectively. The outfit also took the chance to mention that sales of Windows Vista had surpassed 100 million licenses, and Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms and Services Division, even noted that it was "looking forward to the release of its
first service pack later this quarter." You and just under 100 million others, we'd
surmise.
posted Jan 24th 2008 8:21PM
woot! yay M$!
and yes i just copied gizmodo
I'm getting really sick of Engadget.
What really pissed me off during CES is that Ryan Block used engadget to promote his gf, she was on WAY too many product photos. Poor form
and then there's always the inevitable "engadget taking a jab at Microsoft" thing. Why? I just don't get it. Did Microsoft abuse you guys as a child? Fact is, is that without Microsoft you guys wouldn't have the jobs you have today.
I wish we could just stick to news and leave the snide remarks and jabs about microsoft alone. Have some jounalistic integrity.
"Fact is, is that without Microsoft you guys wouldn't have the jobs you have today"
Prove it.
Heres your proof: No one would own computers because they would be too expensive to catch on.
@Alee
Agreed. And I wondered who that girl was...
@Andir3.0
Mike is right. Computers are cheap now because of Microsoft and IBM's work on the original PC. Apple wanted and still wants computers to be exclusive.
@Engadget
You have a lot of comments here saying that you pay out on Microsoft/Vista too much... take note!
@Alee
I have to agree with you on the job thing. The speed at which things such as the internet, home computers, on-line gaming, and a slew of other things that we enjoy today has been made easier because of Microsoft.
You think that the Commodore 64 or the TRS-80 would have brought us to this point? You think that half the people that you know would have picked up the huge (at the time) Computer Shopper, went through 100+ pages of ads, and ordered a PC just to run DOS and deal with config.sys and autoexec.bat to make sure all your drivers load without conflicts, just to get a game of Lemmings to run? I doubt it.
wow, intrepid/mike... so there were no home computers before Microsoft came along? Did I hallucinate all those Sinclair/Commodore/BBC Micro years?
@Loonie
Did you even read what they wrote? They never said there were no home computers before Microsoft. They simply stated that they, Microsoft, made 'em cheaper and more widely available. I guess Steve"your god" Jobs was right about something, people dont read.
Good lord are you guys all 17 years old here? Microsoft made computers *cheaper*? WTF was all that monopoly nonsense where they forced the retailers to sell windows on ALL computers or NO computers.
It doesn't take an econ major to realize that reducing competition makes prices go up for everyone!
From Microsoft Reports Record Revenue,
" About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential."
Its stuff like that makes me smile knowing that my major deals with computers :)
and this post makes me click my "Engadget" Bookmark a few less times a day, and that I have all ads on the site blocked......after what Gizmodo did to their Halo 3 swag, I havent the site since. and I would have no problem not visiting this site as well....careful Engadget......If you don't listen to your readers....then you won't have any
Wow, I just looked up what happened with the Halo 3 swag at Gizmodo... That guys' a douche. Those people had every right to be mad, he was throwing shit that many of us would love to have, and didn't even bother to spend more than 2 minutes doing the "Unboxing".. I'm pretty much never going to Gizmodo for that second video... Bastard. Very unprofessional for them.
@Loonie: You do know that the Commodore 64/128/Pet used BASIC which was written by Microsoft, don't you?
and did YOU know that BASIC wasn't actually invented by microsoft? they haven't done anything original from day 1.
"The BASIC programming language was developed at Dartmouth College in the mid-1960's by professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, as a vehicle to be used to teach programming. Paul Allen and Bill Gates developed a version of BASIC for the Altair computer, being built by MITS of Albuquerque, NM, in themid-1970's."
http://www.oldsoftwareinfo.com/msbasv.htm
@m
Yes, Microsoft implemented a programming language that they did not invent. They also implemented C, C++, Java, Pascal, FORTRAN. Just like open source implemented C, C++, Pascal, and many more, and Apple implemented extensions to Pascal, Objective C was licensed from StepStone to create their own version, and IBM implemented C++, APL, and COBOL, and Intel implemented C++, and FORTRAN, and Fujitsu implemented COBOL, and FORTRAN, and DEC bought FORTRAN from Microsoft, DEC later bought by Compaq, later bought by HP, and so on, and so on, and so on.
But I did not say anything about copying, I was just pointing out that somebody said that Commodore did not use Microsoft software. Now are you going to complain about those other companies that "copied" (if something is a standard, is it really copying? Didn't Safary or Opera copy HTML?) or is your only point to crap all over Microsoft and ignore when others do the same?
You still haven't proven that we would be in a worse state today without Microsoft. I would actually argue that we might be in a better situation with competition.
My point is that you can't prove that Microsoft is the reason they have jobs today. If Microsoft were not in the industry, maybe another operating system might be popular. Maybe even Linux. Think about all those years where MS dominated? What if all those years people were working on open source applications and tools? We'd have even more interoperability today because any company could create software that could edit your documents. You could open your document in any software because all the software would have access to the file formats. You could buy any hardware and run said application on because you wouldn't be stuck to x86 and a certain company's OS and whatever it supports. (And yes, you can have companies in an open source market. The guy pounding away on a keyboard in his basement is a stereotypical view, and is a false view on what Open Source is.) You would also have more competition in hardware. DEC/Alpha might have still been in business giving Intel (and maybe AMD, though some of the Alpha guys were hired into AMD) a run for their money. You could have more choices in hardware because any hardware company could analyze the kernel and write drivers for it, without having to comply with one specific companies view on how it should be done and then getting their approval..
Microsoft had little to nothing to do with HTML and HTTP. So, you may still have bloggers in this world without Microsoft. The users may even be viewing pages on a standards compliant browser instead of some gimped version of IE. Hell, we may even be able to move on to an internet with new features created by some new browser making a storm instead of having to comply to Microsoft's vision of what the internet was supposed to be. Gaming might be further along. Instead of waiting for Microsoft to release their next version of DirectX, a talented group of developers writing a game that revolutionizes the market would gain recognition, and money from teaching others or supporting their engine. Of course, someone else could come along, optimize it and make the experience that much better. But no. You want to wait for MS to update their libraries first.
Saying that bloggers wouldn't have a job without Microsoft is ignorant.
@Mister Jack Storm,
Yes, I read what they wrote. The implication was that affordable home computing would never have happened without Microsoft. Yet other systems developed in parallel achieving just as much success and affordability without any MS involvement. Therefore I take issue with the idea that it was MS who brought affordable home computing to the masses, and without them we'd be chiseling onto stone tablets.
And another thing. Please, can we knock off this "uh you sed bad thing about Microsoft therefore you must be Apple fanboy" bilge? I didn't even mention Apple (Apple 2's floating point BASIC was supplied by MS). I don't have a single Apple product, and I am unlikely to, either. I suppose if the topic were Xbox I would be a Sony fanboy? God, it's like some kind of semi-Godwin's law.
@Mister stephenbratz2:
Yes, I know. Actually, if you really want to be pedantic, it wasn't written by MS, it was written by Commodore based on Microsoft's MOS 6502-BASIC core. Tell me, are you implying the success of Commodore was due to the fact that they used a derivative of Microsoft's derivative of BASIC?
@Mister rimshot515:
I apologize for spamming your thread, especially if you have the "E-mail on reply" flag set. It might be nice to implement the reply feature for replies themselves. Or maybe I should just let these things lie. Life is just too short for all this willy-waving, and it is likely all just destined for a shrieking, hyperbolic, comment-ranking frenzy with zero substance.
Was the shot at Vista really necessary? We get it. Vista has flaws. People would like SP1.
fuck that, i want sp3 for xp
Yeah! When is SP3 coming out? I won't get Vista until I buy a new comp and they are on SP2.
The comment about Vista was TOTALLY not needed. I recently upgraded my 3 year old laptop to Vista, and have no issues. Can't MS get a break? If it's not PC World blasting them, it's Engadget. When Apple releases record profit numbers this year, you won't make fun of them, will you? No! AAPL does no wrong!
(You can say what you want about my comment... I'm not going to comeback and read the degenerate filth that comes out of the head of a mac-tard.)
Well look . . Microsoft has always had a break . . they own 95% of the market . . they could put their legs up for the next six years and come back to a market they still own. Engadget is owned by boys who won't let you in their clubhouse unless you own a mac. Not a lot of people like macs, you just need to get out in the real world.
btw, have you read this article on Vista having the least amount of security flaws of any operating system out right now . . . mac blew it: http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=143979&WT.svl=news1_1
I'd be interested to see a breakdown of income and profit by product, or at least category.
go buy one share of MS stock...its called an annual report/quaterly report
You don't have to own any shares.
you can read their report on their site here http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY08/earn_rel_q2_08.mspx
this is the beauty of a publicly traded companies.
Wow, fred, you were totally right. I seriously wonder how much in kickbacks Engadget is getting from Apple.
QUOTE from http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/24/apple-wants-to-light-up-your-ipod-touchpad/
fred @ Jan 24th 2008 8:18PM
...
Apple's numbers were posted the minute they were released.
Microsoft's are being suppressed until late tonight like they did during the last quarter.
If you want to pretend that this is just by chance, then you are nuts.
...
I just know these guys better than they know themselves.
I'm sure it pained them to no end to write this article.
A lot probably. Probably "special" friends with Steve Jobs.
iBlowSteve
@ SteveMB
is that the newest apple product? like iPod or iTunes? =D
SteveMB: Thank you...that was amazing.
Sorry to reply on my own comment, but I have two more things I want to say:
Is it just me, or has the general populace of Engadget's readers begun to voice out more and more that they are sick and tired of the Apple bias journalism? When are you gonna take a hint Engadget? I, for one, am almost ready to jump ship.
And aside from Vista's lackluster performance, I do have to say that I'm really not surprised about this huge revenue increase for Microsoft. They have been changing a lot, THEY have been taking hints from their customers, and as a network admin, I have to say their server product has become a top notch contender as I have an almost 100% uptime and am looking forward to Server 2008.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go shower as I feel dirty lauding any corporate giant.
this entire thread is ridiculous. all in all, engadget is pretty even-handed. if the fanboys want apple-biased coverage, they have no shortage of outlets. do you realize that neither appleinsider nor macrumors made any mention of apple's tanking stock value? at all?
And yet there are those that would have you believe that we're on the cusp of a horrible economic downturn. From riches to rags in one month makes no sense when business fundamentals are good. Yes, mortgages. I know, I know...
Hmmm... must be an election going on. Seems reminiscent of Clinton One's "Worst economy in 50 years" crack a few years back that wasn't factually true either. Hmmm.. is Clinton Two running? Must be coincidence.
Clinton 2? I wonder what that would be like.
"I did not sleep with that man in the oval office."
-breaks into tears
Oil companies have been turning record profits for the past few years, but that doesn't mean there's plenty of oil (or money) to go around. Retail Vista is one of the most expensive OS's around and gas is also quite expensive. National (US) savings rates are as low as they were in the Great Depression. Big tycoons were making big bucks then as well. Gouging is only a piece of what's going on here.
R, looking at one US corporation's record profits does not mean the US economy is fine and dandy.
So much for all of that nonsense about how much vista sucks!!
You can almost feel the pain engadget suffered in writing this post...
Why all these ridiculous posts bashing the other side. Surely as a reader of Engadget you are a computer / technology enthusiast, in which case you should be interested in news about either platform. A real enthusiast appreciates both OSs plus the many others there, a real computer enthusiast most likely still has a soft spot for the Amiga, The BBC, C64, Sinclair and can appreciate how cutting edge they were for their time. They probably even lusted after a neXt Cube.
Whether you use a Microsoft based machine, a Mac or a Linux machine shouldnt matter. In fact as far as I'm concerned if you bash the other side just because you don't own and use their products then you are nothing more than an immature little kid who thinks his toys are better because he doesnt know any better.
All this crap with Xbox is better than PS3, Apple is better than Microsoft, this is better than that... Windows Mobile is better than the iPhone... its all just crap. They all have their good points and should be appreciated as such.
Each time I see a negative comment I just assume the person writing it has no experience using the product/system they are bashing or they are just a kid with no real experience of true computer usage, (If you've only ever used a windows based PC you have no real experience), either that or they are just jealous of people that can afford to buy and use an Xbox360, a PS3 and a Wii, that can afford to buy an iPhone to try it out and see if they like it and who don't blindly follow the crowd.
And the Zune and Xbox are profitable :)
Yup! thats gr8 news! and hopefully from now-on those profits will only increase.
Gud for MS. Keep it up guys!!.
shocking that after all of the bad press and general negativity about Vista, they sell that many (bundled or packaged)! Shows how many lemmings there are, and they just go with the safe bet ...
hasnt that basically been what apple has been spewing in their ads for the past what?... 5 years - no viruses - it just works - blah blah.
shouldn't it say 4th quarter not second?
Nino
No, every company starts their fiscal year at different times. Microsofts fiscal year ends on June 30th, thus these are microsofts 2nd quarter numbers. Every company does things a little differently. Apple for example, just reported their Q1 numbers, which ended on Dec. 29th.
ahhh gotcha. didnt even realize that. thanks for clearing that up for me.
Nino
I'm seriously sick of Engadget's bias towards Mac and against Windows. Seriously, the shot againt Vista in this post was not called for, and it just shows how biased this site really is.
I don't care which they like better, the point is that their elitist fanboy nonsense should not be spewing into their news posts.
Um, it's sort of their site isn't it? You can come here or not can't you? If you're so sick of it, um, there's a whole lot of internet out there. Oh, and by the way, I think it's hilarious how people act as though Microsoft is this poor, downtrodden company that always gets picked on and can't get a break. It's fucking Microsoft people. One of the most powerful, monopolistic, megacops in the history of man. They crush actual, poor, downtrodden companies like aluminum cans.
Glad to see you like biased journalism with zero integrity.
If you want serious, hard hitting journalism, is this really the place to find it? 'Cause, again, big internet, lots of sites, try the WSJ or Time or something. Personally, I think the people who run the sight are intitled to their opinion. But that's just my opinion.
"Glad to see you like biased journalism with zero integrity."
erm... it's a blog? You want lack of bias, try CNN. I may not exactly enjoy the Apple slant these guys have, but it IS their site. If they want to lean Jobs's's way, well, that's their deal. Somehow I suspect that if all the stop-worshipping-Apple comments haven't done any good thus far, they're really not ever going to. Do these guys even read the comments?
"You want lack of bias, try CNN."
Eh, that caught me off guard... because it wasn't sarcasm and... you actually believe it?
Watch out! Too many comments and Block & Company will shut down the thread like they did during the Zune review. I don't think they like Microsoft - they certainly don't like readers disagreeing with them.
Its just the press and bloggers making all the fuss (and I think most of the still use vista on their machines), but most of the people who actually USED Vista will like it (or atleast not hate it).
I've been using Vista for more than a year now and its more stable (except IE, damn IE!!) than XP has ever been and easier to use.
Another few hundred million for Bill to use to stop malaria :]
he wouldn't need the millions if he would just use DDT.
Also, historically, I've been pretty vocal about calling engadget out on their bias as tons of other people have too. Oddly enough, I can no longer use my primary email account/user account on engadget. My comments never post and it never comes through my email. I'm now relagated to using a secondary account to post?!? Coincidence?
I have to agree with some of the people above. I mean god what is up with you guys and Microsoft. I stopped going to Gizmodo because of how apple loving they were not to mention the Halo bullshit they pulled. I stuck to Engadget because I thought you guys were fair but lately I don't know. Honestly it is very disappointing and for the record I own a mac and a pc.
Apple's "Amazing" $1.58B doesn't seem so amazing anymore, now does it? Looks like more people are buying Zunes than Apple thinks. And yes, I do know someone who owns a Zune.
MS' fiscal year ends the end of June.
What does this post have to do with the MacBook Air?
HA. But seriously, it looks like Microsoft's pricing gouging model on Vista is actually making them money... That's terrible for consumers, and a BAD reinforcement for Microsoft.
Vista Ultimate is $300+, or "just" ~$170 if you go with the OEM version (which is locked to one motherboard for life). Speaking as a Vista owner, that sucks.
Why does Microsoft have trumpets, and why is it using them as a recording device? Actually, how do you record something with a trumpet???
try reading it as "microsoft boasts record second quarter results", record is used as an adjective not a verb
anyway, to everyone else: im more sick of people posting about being sick of engadget for cheap shots and whatnot. i dont care if their articles sound biased or not. i just enjoy finding out when new stuff is coming out and such, then i pass my own judgment on what i think about that product. instead of complaining, go somewhere else instead of wasting your time complaining about a free service that isnt required to be unbiased, or better yet, start your own so you can be "unbiased"
You are more than likely being sarcastic but just in case... its record, like record breaking, not like recording noise.
My skills at intentionally reading things wrong seem to surpass your joke detection skills :D
shawn, I mean. Evan does better.
The entertainment division posted 542 million dollar profit too!
I never could understand how some people would align their persona with a company or a sports team. It's like some form of mental illness.
I will say this...The I-Tunes user interface stinks. It's the worse I've seen in a long time. It's NOT intuitive . And songs on my Shuffle occasionally skip as if the needle on a record player jumped.
Great comment! Thumbs up ;)
I clicked the wrong button there... that was meant to be under Dragod's comment... sorry.
I would bet my left nut that "mike" is a paid Microsoft shill since he posts MULTIPLE times in any MS or Apple thread spouting mindless fanboyism for MS.
I'd bet that all Engadget's staff are Apple shills because 90% of their posts seem to be pro-Apple (incredibly, even when posting about the Macbook Air) and the remaining 10% seems to include a snide comment bashing Microsoft or one of their products - even when the post isn't about Microsoft or one of their products.
After reading this little dig at Microsoft, I thought to myself: I wonder how long it will take before someone starts bashing Apple. God, and Windows users say Apple users are fanatical. Get a Grip.
By making Vista so awful, and by continuing to support a superior operating system (i.e. XP SP3), Microsoft is all but requiring conscientious consumers and smaller businesses buy a second OS with any new computers they purchase. Much like an airline makes passengers pay extra for sufficient legroom (i.e. United Economy Plus). Genius!
this site is becoming way to microsoft bashing.
Windows vista is not bad at all ok maybe it isnt a huge leap from xp but hey it works.
i agree, and its not like osx leopard was such a great leap either.
To all of those who say "it IS their blog, they ARE entitled to an opinion": of course this is true, but also true is that, as a reader, I am their source of income (you didn't think they were the world's geekiest philanthropists, now did you?).
Seeing they make money out of their visitors, I think it is only fair that they'd listen to us and cut the god damn MS bashing already! Jesus bloody Christ, do you really have to nitpick about Vista every single time?
If any of the editors read these comments, take a look at how many of us you are pissing with this childish, mine-is-better-than-yours attitude. And that just the ones that actually have the time and patience to post a complain.
Isn't there some kind of relationship between AOL and Apple?
As an AOL site, Engadget might be merely driving under this influence.
Many people fail to understand how important this site is to Apple.
Apple is mostly build on hype, they don't really have any real market share in anything except the DAP market, which isn't that big of a business. This site being one of the most popular blogs on the internet and the fact that most of the posts are incredibly pro-Apple, things like these have to be extremely valuable to Apple. There is also a lot strange Goebbels like false information and attacks against other companies that slowly but surely makes people buy products from Apple.
I read and enjoy Engadget but people should remember how manipulative a site like this can be and we are talking about huge amounts of money, not just a fanboy or two.
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if you look at what it says about engadget when your in engadget mobile, it says latest gadget and tech NEWS!!! not blog! I have been put on spam once for talking about the "writers" it's funny even though MBA was crap engadget just couldn't say it, all they say it's not for everyone. yet M$ is the devil! they are a monoploy! wtf is apple then?! you can't run OSX on a dell or gateway, you can only run it on THEIR Hardware which they over price!? WTF!
I have Vista running on 2 computers and haven't had any trouble whatsoever. Before I started using Vista I was worried about driver support and other problems that have been mentioned on Engadget. I haven't run into any driver problems and have only had good experiences with the OS. You guys should really lay off Vista. It is a good operating system that is only getting better.
Of course is a record! You buy a new pc with vista. Then you have to UPGRADE your vista to xp... buying a new license.
@ Engadget: PLEASE stop the MS bashing yes we understand you dont like them or there products fine, but just because you dont like them doesnt mean that others wont. You are getting to the point were there is a good possiblity of having a mass exodus of readers.
about MS, yes their stuff isnt the greatest, yes it has problems, but who's doesn't? at billions of lines of code it is easy to miss an error or not realize a potential problem, but they really do try and make things better. For instance, my father works for a small satellite university, as a network admin, and MS has no problem getting a team of coders working on a solution at 3am. Yes Vista has problems but when I installed it, all but my old audigy ls sound card had drivers that were auto installed, yes some of the drivers were a little old but nothing that would hinder performance. Plus I haven't yet had a BSOD by fault of Vista, one of my HDs ate itself.
Also, since the 360 and zune division was profitable that means that we will get more ZUNES!! wooot!! I love mine it works very well. Not like the shuffle I had, it would turn off if I skipped more then 5 songs in a row with out listening to a whole song. then when I turned it back on it was at the place it had started from when I started skipping songs! How annoying!!
PS does anyone know of any good tech sites that aren't so apple biased?