DISQUS

Zoli Erdos · 2 years ago

Mathew,

I don't think the scepticism has been misplaced.

Vista still is a nightmare, but customer satisfaction and market success have little do do with each other in a monopoly. Vista sells, because we're buying computers, and have no choice. It's clear from their 10-Q.

Mathew · 2 years ago

I know that, Zoli -- that's why I mentioned it in the post. But there were other growth drivers as well.

MG Siegler · 2 years ago

Yes, Microsoft is great - at making money - this has been the case for a long time. That hardly makes them a great company however.

The Halo sales are impressive, but I've long thought the Xbox division was the only division within Microsoft that seemed to do things that made sense, that appears to be panning out now.

The 88 million is a big number, but you hit it right on the head, Microsoft won't give out the number that actually sold to consumers. As I've said before it's like if a crappy movie opened at #1 at the box office because theaters are giving away tickets due to long-standing relationship with the studio behind it.

As you noted, the likelihood they have another quarter like that every quarter is not so good moving forward. Halo 4 isn't coming out next quarter and Vista will still be Vista. Expectations could be their worst enemy now.

Mr Speaker · 2 years ago

As much as we all hate microsoft, I bet you they aren't worried a bit about expectations - after all, they've had strong growth for the last 88 or so quarters.

I don't think that the fact people are buying more copies of Microsoft's Windows XP rather than Microsoft's Windows Vista is going to bother them too much.