Thursday, July 17, 2008

Microsoft Misses Net Income Target

This doesn't sound good for tech stocks.

Sales of word-processing and spreadsheet products missed Microsoft's goals for the second straight time amid what Goldman Sachs says is the worst technology spending environment since 2003. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer is courting sales overseas, and efforts have been hampered by piracy in countries such as China, where eight in 10 programs are illegal copies.

I also have to say that those Office programs are just not much of a improvement over one another so I can see why they are missing goals. I have noticed that Office 2003 is pretty good for just about everything that a user may need.

If there are differences between Office 2003 and Office XP or Office 2007 then I am really not aware of them. I think many users are unaware of the difference as well. These new versions just seem to be a coat of graphics paint on the same basic structure.

No wonder they are trying to push the Yahoo merger so hard. They seem to be losing sales in their core businesses and are trying desperately to branch out with mixed results. Also it seems that Vista was a failure and the only reason people are using it is because it comes pre-loaded on their new PCs. I don't think Microsoft is going to be a decent stock until they get out their new OS Windows Vienna.

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