| kowenicki said:
Ahhhh, its the most important figure if you are thinking defensively, but if you are being expansive then no... Growth of revenue matters every bit as much. get market traction and penetration and then streamline to improve profit margins. It isnt all due to losing ground in OS otherwise clearly profits wouldnt increase year on year as they are. |
Makes sense 
. In other words once costs are amortized over time the profits will start reeling in. Do we know how long these other revenue streams have been open for? For example I know that Azure is new, and the Server and Tools division nearly equaled the Windows division in revenue (which is quite the feat), but what about the Online Services Division, how new is that, what is it about and what causes it to be 1.4k in the red?
The thing I was wondering though is, what about the competitors in the Windows division and what is MS' relative growth in the market compared to its competitors and to the industry as a whole?
In the end I think you see the answers to those questions and that's why you initially answered that it's a bit of both defensive and offensive, but it does help to understand it all and when you actually take the time to look into it it isn't hauntingly complex. 
