Microsoft Lost $900 Million on Surface RT in Q1

[DirtyP2002]

Soleron said:

kowenicki said

Just the $5bn profit this quarter and $27bn profit for the year then.

The problem with that is that you could justify MS doing ANYTHING, no matter how little sense it makes, because the background revenue from just being Microsoft will cause quarterly profits anyway. MS could hand out $900m of cheeseburgers on street corners and it'd be OK.

The important message from this writedown is that certain people and departments within Microsoft have no idea what they're doing or what the market wants. If these people are promoted within the Windows division, eventually the background revenue will be under threat. There will come a time when a Windows device isn't necessary in every house or office.

I think this logic is a big problem on VGC.

Microsoft does not generate its revenues from being Microsoft. MS is that successful because 9 out of 10 times they make the right choice.
As Kowe said they make bets / investments / experiments or whatever you want to call it all the time. Xbox was such a experiment and it paid off.

Azure was an investment 3 years ago and it became a huge success. Office 365 is doing really well, too.

The Surface did not pay off (so far).