Microsoft restructuring... more hardware and devices to follow.

[Shinobi-san]

happydolphin said:

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.

It's not that complex.

MS has always been a strong player when it comes to enterprise software but they have been super aggressive over the last few years. They want businesses to be on the FULL MS STACK for just about every aspect of their business (IT related ovviously). They are killing guys like oracle, IBM etc. They are also in a similar position with Azure...mix in their enterprise offerings and they are in a completely dominating position when it comes to business and rapidly expanding that lead.

This is where Windows as a consumer OS doesnt really have the same importance as it use to have.  And its not like Windows is doing bad....Apple is just growing faster here (i think?) but then again Apple isnt very big when it comes to marketshare with consumer OS and are nowhere at enterprise level.

So yeah i think what Kowen is trying to say is that MS are actually in a very strong position and this might not be obvious to most people who usually only follow consumer trends and not the big picture.

If MS decides to take things seriously in the areas they have been experimenting with lately they will probably be a force to reckon with. Couple that with a complete domination in just about every other thing they involved in and well yeah you get the picture.