So Microsoft just posted a 29% drop in profits and a 17% drop in revenues last quarter. Those are big numbers, to be sure, but bear in mind that a 29% drop in profits still means the boys in Redmond made $3.05B. Most companies would love to have their profits “sink” to that number.
An interesting side tidbit was the $276M in deferred revenue for the Windows group. Of course, that’s all those Windows 7 coupons that people are snapping up. Of course, it’s also possible that may include the recent aggressive upgrade pricing for Windows 7 — they charged much less for Windows 7 Home Premium ($49!) than the eventual price would be. The open question is this: once prices are brought down like that, can they really reprice higher? It will be interesting to watch.
Still, I know a ton of people who snapped up those upgrades. So Windows 7 is already on a roll. Now that they’ve gone gold, it’s likely that no one will really want Vista. It’s unlikely that the final release date will be pulled in, though. There’s still a ton of work on the logistics side to pull together before they ship.
Well I see that Apple did very well…
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/21861/
Yes, they did. But I also noticed that ipod sales were down, and the iMacs have slipped a bit.
Well it’s a tough economy. They seem to be doing pretty well though. A bit better than Microsoft it seems…
I got my Win 7 coupon for $39.99 over at a 2 day Microcenter event last month. I was not really planning on upgrading, but the price was right, and the RC has been at least tolerable. Not gonna make me give up Linux or anything. It will be relegated to the gaming only box.
tlmck: pclinuxOS? ;P
I too grabbed the Win 7 HP upgrade when it was on sale for $49 on newegg, the price was definitely right!
So, and I’m betting my math is way off, does mean that Microsoft sold around 3.9 million copies (well if everyone bought HP and not Pro, w/ ppl buying pro that 3.9 goes down so i’ll say.. 3.4 million).
Windows 7 looks to be off to a good start!
One good thing about Win 7 is that it’s looking to be a much better release in terms of graphics driver support!