Microsoft Lost $900 Million on Surface RT in Q1

[DirtyP2002]

Soleron said:

DirtyP2002 said:

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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.

Are you living on a different planet? Online Services is still making big losses; EDD is making a loss.

None of their bets/experiments using Windows/Office have ever paid off, ever. You may call them a success by other metrics (supporting Windows pervasiveness) but not financial.

Their choices are only right for a product that has ~90% marketshare. Any other market they fail hard time after time.

Like for example their response to this is an expensive redesign of RT tablets. I expect a $900m writedown on that gen as well in a few months. The best thing to do would be to scrap it and focus on bringing full Windows down to a competitive price, size and weight.

 

The EDD just made a loss this Q, not for the full year. It always posts a loss for Q4.

Here are the results for the financial years:

2013: 848 million USD profit
2012: 364 million USD profit
2011: 1.257 billion USD profit
2010: 517 million USD profit
2009: 169 million USD profit
2008: 497 million USD profit

And that includes R&D, Zune, Kin and payments to Nokia. The EDD is a very healthy division. It hasn't post a loss since 2007.

Windows phone is on a pretty good way.
Skype (a 7 billion bet) is stronger than ever, posting a 41% increase YoY.
Heck even Bing is making small steps in the right direction and might actually turn a profit in the next 1 or 2 years.