Re: Microsoft's revenue structure

[Marc Sunet]

What's your takeaway here? Is this mostly an exercise out of curiosity?

> The Techrights site frequently posts articles which say that 
Microsoft's accounts should not be trusted.

It'd be illegal for a publicly-traded company to meddle with financial 
results and they'd risk lawsuits from investors, so I'm not sure where 
this claim comes from. Here's 2024 Q1 earnings:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2024-Q1/press-release-webcast

> Server products and cloud services is the product category generating 
the most revenue.  I personally do not often encounter Microsoft 
servers, especially web servers and email servers, so such a large 
presence comes as a surprise.

They missed the phone shift and cloud/Azure is where they put their 
money at. Likely to keep trending upwards with the OpenAI hype as of 
late. IIS is also fairly popular in corporate networks, but that's 
probably a drop in the ocean for them now.

> Maybe Microsoft has woken up to the fact that with the limited market 
share they hold today, they don't get to alter standards at will.

I don't think they have. I think you're confusing revenue with market 
share. Windows/desktop is a drop in the bucket for the company in terms 
of revenue, and the garbage that is Windows 11 shows for it. But they 
still hold >90% strong of desktop/laptop market share due to their 
partnerships with OEMs.

Which reminds me, how is it still legal for an OEM to ship a "default" 
OS in a computer without giving the customer any choice, esp. with 
BIOSes that now often don't let you boot a third-party OS unless you 
enable the option explicitly (and those that they let you boot I think 
need a secure boot key signed by Microsoft, lol)? Has this been an 
avenue of research for the FSF or some other organization lately?

Marc

On 2/24/24 18:35, Akira Urushibata wrote:
> I decided to take took a look at Microsoft's revenue structure.  In
> the past Windows was the leading product, and by far, but it is not so
> today.  In 2023 Windows accounted for only 10% of total revenue.  In
> the most recent quarter, revenue from games has surpassed revenue from
> Windows.
>
> Server products and cloud services is the product category generating
> the most revenue.  I personally do not often encounter Microsoft
> servers, especially web servers and email servers, so such a large
> presence comes as a surprise.
>
> When Windows ruled dominant, we often encountered Microsoft products
> with certain enhancements that did not respect established protocols
> and standards.  We often heard that the software faithful to the
> standards was somehow broken.  Nowadays I hear few tales of problems
> of this sort.  Maybe Microsoft has woken up to the fact that with the
> limited market share they hold today, they don't get to alter
> standards at will.
>
> Maybe some list subscribers feel that now systemd has become a
> source of concern.
>
> Microsoft Revenue Breakdown - FourWeekMBA
> https://fourweekmba.com/microsoft-revenue-breakdown/
>
>     Server Products & Cloud Services 79.97 37.7%
>     Office Products & Cloud Services 48.73 23.0%
>     Windows                          21.50 10.1%
>     Gaming                           15.46  7.2%
>     Linkedin                         15.14  7.1%
>     Search Advertising               12.20  5.7%
>     Enterprise services               7.72  3.6%
>     Devices                           5.52  2.6%
>     Other                             5.60  2.6%
>
> The Techrights site frequently posts articles which say that
> Microsoft's accounts should not be trusted.  The above figures are
> from a site for students of business administration.  I believe they
> are based on reports from Microsoft.
>
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