More money out Microsoft's door

[madluther]

link http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2004/04/12/rtr1328650.html

Add this to the 600 million fine from the EU and a 2 Billion dollar settlement to SUN , that 3 Billion lost already this year. Keep hemorrhaging money Bill,  it does my heart good.

[Refalm]

Microsoft has more money than a small African country, so this doesn't hurt them much.

We need restrictions on the companies that Microsoft can buy however...

[WMD]

MS has $52 billion on the books.  Lost $3 billion so far this year.  At that rate, it'd be...about 4 years before MS goes bankrupt.

Longhorn comes out before then  

[Xeen]

quote:Originally posted by WMD:
MS has $52 billion on the books.  Lost $3 billion so far this year.  At that rate, it'd be...about 4 years before MS goes bankrupt.

Longhorn comes out before then    

Not too good with math are you?

[savet]

I think he meant that in 4 months, they've had to pay out 3 billion.  If the track record continues, they'd be paying out 12 billion/year.  Over 4 years, that would amount to 48 billion.

The problem with this math is it doesn't take into consideration the money they will make off of Longhorn, Office programs, and whatever they make as the delve into the search engine arena.  Not to mention their various other business ventures to get MS products into daily lives. It also assumes MS will lose money over the next 4 years, or at least maintain the status quo.  Somehow I don't see this hapening...if they've done nothing else, they've shown their ability to make money.

I think it's overly optomistic to expect MS to go bankrupt.  But if this continues, we could definately see some of the competition catch up.

[PseudoRandomDragon]

There is no doubt in my mind that MS is going to get a lot of money when Longhorn comes out. It will be on every new system and a lot of people will buy into the upgrade bullshit.