Microsoft record profits on back of Windows 7

They have the best OS on the market right now and deserve to be doing well.

Of course they posted a record quarter (finally!)

It's hundreds of millions of PC users waiting for the Vista nightmare to be over. What did you expect? Poor sales of Windows 7?? What are the alternatives offered by MS? XP and Vista. One is an 8+ year old dog of an OS, the other is a massive flop. That's hundreds of millions of PC users dying for an upgrade after years of getting the shaft. And Apple's Premium end of the market has natural barriers to entry, starting with the $1000 minimum fee. Apple doesn't compete in the market segments occupied mostly by MS. Of course, Apple is now transitioning away from the traditional desktop computer + desktop OS paradigm.

PC users outnumber all others, and always have, whether MS released a good OS or a lousy one - PCs are cheap and now more disposable than ever (netbooks.) The bottom of the retail pyramid is always the widest. The biggest computer-using segment uses PCs. Now throw in an OS that fixes Vista and by sheer force of numbers alone (volume) you'll have a great quarter.

There's no miracle here. Just the massive number of PC users who suffered for years, now jumping at the chance to upgrade. It's nothing new, miraculous or groundbreaking. BUT . . . MS *did* release a Windows that lives up to their expectations, and they deserve all the credit in the world for that. It's a shame that it took this long, though. Right now, Windows is really all MS has going for it in the consumer market. And I think it will be enough to help MS ride out the difficulties they're experiencing in their other consumer-oriented ventures. It should allow them some breathing room to develop their mobile segment and give investors a good reason to maintain their confidence.

ArrowSmith said:

But I thought WinBlows was supposed to be EPIC FAIL!!!!

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It makes no difference whether it succeeds or fails. PC users, by virtue of the low cost of entry into the PC market alone, will always outnumber users of all other platforms. Windows will always sell well, in whatever form, because it can run on the cheapest hardware - and this is what you find the most of. But now, we're seeing highly concentrated sales of a particular version (good news) because everyone was waiting to upgrade and end the XP/Vista pain, which lasted far, far too long.

LTD, please take your fanboy drivel elsewhere. If we are to follow your logic then surely a free Linux variant would be the most popular PC OS in the world given that it is free and runs on the cheapest machines.

Also, Microsoft fixed the problems which XP and Vista had years ago, but clearly you spend so much time trash talking Windows that you don't have any left to actually use it.

In contrast, Apple has spent the last five years focusing on everything but its computers, ensuring that its $2000 laptops have half the number of cores as the competition and its most expensive desktops don't have access to modern GPUs. It also spent the time ensuring that OS X is now more unreliable than it has been for years.

Right now, Windows is really all MS has going for it in the consumer market.

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Microsoft has over 40 million Xbox 360 consoles out there, a huge proportion of which are tied to its LIVE subscription service that continues to generate revenue for the company. It plans to launch a significant new peripheral called "Natal" later this year.

Of course, Apple is now transitioning away from the traditional desktop computer + desktop OS paradigm.

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At every single user's expense.

neiltc13 said:

They have the best OS on the market right now and deserve to be doing well.

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Yep. Windows 7 is fantastic. Well deserved profit, MS.

Win7 is great

neiltc13 said:

They have the best OS on the market right now and deserve to be doing well.

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neiltc13 said:

LTD, please take your fanboy drivel elsewhere.

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Pot meet kettle.

neiltc13 said:

LTD, please take your fanboy drivel elsewhere. If we are to follow your logic then surely a free Linux variant would be the most popular PC OS in the world given that it is free and runs on the cheapest machines.

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No. These people were already tied to Windows. Hence, they upgraded from an earlier version of Windows (XP or Vista.)

gibbz said:

Pot meet kettle.

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I use Windows XP, Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 on a daily basis. Windows 7 is definitely the best OS you can buy today, but it's not quite as good as Mac OS X 10.4. Unfortunately people who buy a Mac now won't get 10.4, they'll get an OS which has been a huge step backwards in terms of performance and reliability.

I am interested in their OS for the first time in... a real long time. I heard they actually listened to customers this time!

neiltc13 said:

They have the best OS on the market right now and deserve to be doing well.

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Why wouldn't it be doing well? And I think best OS is an opinion, but then again if I say that I am an Apple Fanboy, but if you say it,,,,well you are just stating truth... yeah ok.

neiltc13 said:

LTD, please take your fanboy drivel elsewhere.

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His comments seem perfectly reasonable actually...

I can't see any fanboy drivel in his post.

I agree with whoever said that Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) has been the best Mac OS X to date.

It doesn't have as many features as Leopard or Snow Leopard, but it was overall more stable than either because it didn't focus on eye candy or useless features, it just had the features and UI to "get it done" but still look great.

Apple used to be all about simplicity and minimalist design, their OS went the opposite way.

TSE said:

I agree with whoever said that Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) has been the best Mac OS X to date.

It doesn't have as many features as Leopard or Snow Leopard, but it was overall more stable than either because it didn't focus on eye candy or useless features, it just had the features and UI to "get it done" but still look great.

Apple used to be all about simplicity and minimalist design, their OS went the opposite way.

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If someone a year ago told me that the new Windows would be more stable than Snow Leopard right now, I would not have believed it one bit... sadly, it's true and Windows went for the efficiency design this time, whereas 10.5/10.6 went for the bloat...

I'm loving Windows 7. So far it's been 100%. Vista on the other hand REALLY sucked!

Windows will always suck....cause they freeze.......

neiltc13 said:

I use Windows XP, Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 on a daily basis. Windows 7 is definitely the best OS you can buy today, but it's not quite as good as Mac OS X 10.4. Unfortunately people who buy a Mac now won't get 10.4, they'll get an OS which has been a huge step backwards in terms of performance and reliability.

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The problem is I do too, but I have a totally different experience. In terms of getting stuff done, Windows XP is considerably faster than Vista or 7. Something you get done in 1 step with XP (like dialling into a client's server) takes 2 more steps under Vista/7.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer 7. But I don't agree it is better in every single way compared to older versions of Windows. Mac OS X 10.6 is still the best OS as far as I am concerned though. I would also take 10.6 over .4 any day and that's not just because of the exchange support.

So if Windows 7 is superior to Mac Snow Leopard (which I agree it is) why even buy a Mac today? I say sell your Apple stock.

I know 4 people who recently purchased Macs. They all use Windows 7 for everything--they can't even imagine using OS X. One tried he said Flash was like it was in year 1998, lol.

Frisco said:

So if Windows 7 is superior to Mac Snow Leopard (which I agree it is) why even buy a Mac today? I say sell your Apple stock.

I know 4 people who recently purchased Macs. They all use Windows 7 for everything--they can't even imagine using OS X. One tried he said Flash was like it was in year 1998, lol.

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I was thinking of getting a MBP, but then I used 7. I still want my MBP and will probably get it in the near future. But I built a Win7 machine for 800 CAD, that at the moment and IMO would eat any MBP alive at anything under Win7

+1 Windows 7 is fantastic and MSFT deserves it.

Been super happy with my Win7 purchase and it will only get better.

Frisco said:

So if Windows 7 is superior to Mac Snow Leopard (which I agree it is) why even buy a Mac today? I say sell your Apple stock.

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The only real benefit you get from buying a Mac these days is good build quality (but even that is in doubt - see recent iMac releases for an example).

If you buy a Mac, you pay more for less powerful hardware running a less stable operating system.

I love Windows 7. It's like Windows XP with Vista features.

I love Windows XP just as much though, since it is literally one of the fastest supported operating systems out there (versions of Linux are faster, but I don't like Linux), it takes almost no hard drive space, and it has all the features I need.

Microsoft really did a great job on 7. I wish I could say the same for Apple's Leopard and Snow Leopard, but 10.7 is probably going to be amazing since they got all the under the hood stuff done with.

Microsoft definitely did it right with Windows 7 from the Beta. Everyone makes mistakes and learns from them which is what happen with Windows Vista, and sadly Microsoft made that mistake in a critical time. To be honest, vista is a perfectly fine operating system now, though it's marked for life as a bad operating system because of how it began. From now on, Microsoft can only go up, hopefully Windows 7 was the start of the next best OS.

No one has commented on this part? Really?

net income of $6.66 billion

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It seems MS had some otherworldly help making Win7 take off!

In all seriousness, though, Win7 is a very good OS. With all the awesome deals MS offered at launch, I bought a copy of Professional for my desktop and Home Premium for my laptop. The price was right and quality is excellent. I'm looking forward to Office 2010, hoping for the same quality and some nice incentives.