thomas fitzgerald.net

I can’t believe I almost let this one slip by. When Microsoft posted it’s profit announcements last week they made the comment that Vista sales were “better than expected”. Considering that they spent the previous few months lowering expectations to the point where people were doubting if vista was selling well at all, it is hardly surprising they “beat expectations”. Also of note:

“Between $1bn to $1.7bn in Vista sales had been deferred to the firm’s third-quarter to account for discounted upgrades given to PC buyers.”

So…draw your own conclusions on that one.

“”There was a lot of concern in the marketplace over Microsoft’s 2008 outlook,” said Andy Miedler, a technology analyst at Edward Jones.

“We think this forecast should allay these concerns.”

Yeah, so by lowering expectations and combining two quarters worth of sales, that should allay concerns. Qudos for the creative accounting techniques.

Microsoft pundits will argue that Microsoft’s sales easily dwarfs Apple’s, but then again, given that the company sells to many markets outside of Apple and has a substantially higher market share, they should Dwarf Apple. And yet the company seems in perpetual fear of Apple and it’s products. Those same tech pundits (you know who they are) argue that the press is unfairly praising Apple when Microsoft is making much more money, but again, if they weren’t it would be a bigger issue. Besides, I think that is a complaint best leveled at Microsoft’s pr department rather than the technology press.