Microsofts profit by division. Is the XBOX really worth it to Microsoft?

[Squilliam]

Untamoi said:

DirtyP2002 said:

2nd graph is pointless. It has nothing to do with Xbox or Xbox Live.

Xbox 360 and Xbox Live are in E&D

The E&D division is mainly Zune, Windows Mobile and Xbox (Live). There are things like office for Macs and headsets or keyboards, but those are tiny compared to the first three.

Zune is basically losing money since its introduction in 2006. Windows Mobile will see a massive and promising update soon with the release of WinMo 7. Until then it keeps on losing money and sucking R&D costs for WinMo 7. The division reports profits for every quarter since January 2008. How can this be the case? That is because of the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. The Xbox 360 will break even very soon and make a nice little profit in the end. Sure the profit might not be as gigantic as the other divisions will report, but that is a comparison nobody in this industry could really win.

Office for Mac alone is a huge money maker and I would say it is bigger than you believe. Sales of Office for Mac has been reported to be very big, around 20% of the Office packages sold in USA are Mac versions which alone would mean quite big revenues. And Office for Mac is definitely very profitable, no one can deny it. Not like it would make much difference but I wouldn't underestimate meaning of Office for Mac for the division.

Sold @ retail. The majority of money Microsoft makes on office is through the OEM channels. The EDD then pays a commission to the other parts of the division for the software they sell which effectively covers the cost of sale but little more. Oh and they haven't released a new version for a while so that % would be dropping until they release a MAC version of office 2010 which is typically a year after the PC version.