Microsoft Reports Record Revenue

jones_supa sends this AFP report: "Microsoft soared to record revenues in the last quarter, confounding Wall Street forecasts on the back of strong demand for Xbox consoles, Surface tablets and Internet cloud services. The U.S.-based technology titan reported net income of $6.56 billion on revenue that hit a record high of $24.52 billion in the quarter that ended December 31. ... Sales of Surface tablets more than doubled from the previous quarter to hit $893 million, and Microsoft sold 7.4 million Xbox videogame consoles, with 3.9 million of those being new-generation Xbox One. Bing's share of the Internet search market grew to 18.2 percent while its share of the online search ad market grew about a third, according to Microsoft. Meanwhile, money made from selling Windows software to computer makers slid by three percent due to continue soft demand by consumers for personal computers, according to Microsoft."

Strategy?

[nashv]

That billion dollar write-off on the Surface tablets doesn't seem so bad now does it...

Surface in the Enterprise

[Sir_Eptishous]

We have recently purchased a Surface to test with some LIMS software we use, which currently runs fine on W7. We were told it wouldn't run on 8. It has been discovered that it does in fact run on 8 and runs fine on our Surface. We are going to to test using Surface tablets running 8.1 in our environment. So far so good.

Are we running this on iPads or Android tablets? No.
Why?
Because the software in question, along with pretty much everything else we use is designed to run on either Windows or Linux.

I could draw a conclusion here that Surface tablets will make in roads into the Enterprise for exactly this reason. Yes, yes, I know there are thousands of iPads in Enterprises right now, with all manner of executive and administrative staffers trying to look important at work with their tablet, while busily updating their FB status. However, I feel that because of MS's entrenched position in the Enterprise the Surface is more of a "work" device than an iPad or Android tablet.

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is Windows 8 "in the way" on a tablet? It's probably the best tablet OS out there right now.

Re:Surface in the Enterprise

[sandytaru]

My husband's school offered him an iPad. He asked them for a Surface instead. After some quick checking with IT, he got his Surface. The IT department was actually happy about it, since they have a Microsoft+Linux server backend and the Surface acts like any other Windows machine when interfaced with the network. So while all the iPad users end up putting in a service call every week because some app isn't working right, my husband (and the two other Surface users that joined him) haven't had any issues at all.

Now, I lost some faith in the Surface when I saw it have a BSOD just after 8.1 rolled out, but it only happened to him once.

Re:Wow.

[kelemvor4]

Obviously a lot of people want to learn how to breakdance. That's what Surface tablets are for, right? I watch a lot of tv commercials

I've got one (the original PRO), it's great for a portable device. Full on windows that can actually run real programs yet shaped like a tablet. I've got an ipad and a Samsung galaxy tab that were used for a couple months but then were relegated to dust collection. Man can only play so much angry birds...

I prefer taking it to meetings over my laptop.

And remember. It's just an intel Core i5 computer with an SSD and 4gb of ram shaped like a tablet. If you don't like win8, then install Linux, or whatever OS you want on one.

It's not even close to perfect, but it's the best attempt at a tablet I've seen for sale.

Re:Rumers..demise..exaggerated.

[lgw]

No, Java's the only other real contender for modern "enterprise" software (the backend - much of the JS on the client sadly comes from Java libraries). I've spent years writing code in both Java and C#, and these days C# wins hands down.

For years they were leapfrogging one another - whichever language had the most recent major release was a bit better, but not enough to really matter. But Java hit the rocks a few years back and has been sinking ever since. It had stumbled before Oracle, when C# got modern list processing with LINQ and a lambda operator, and Java missed the boat. And with the death of Sun, they never recovered.

The single biggest missing piece for C# right now is the lack of official support for writing Android apps in C#/Visual Studio. There are commercial solutions for that, but without official blessing it lacks the power of "no one has ever been fired for buying IBM". Maybe the new bosses at MS can get wise to that - it's not like they don't make money off of Android sales.

Re:Surface in the Enterprise

[CastrTroy]

Even the Surface 2 (not Pro) is a better work device then an Android tablet or iPad. It comes with a free copy of MS Office. It can join the domain, access shared folders, use Outlook to communicate with Exchange, and it basically costs the less or the same as an iPad or top end Android Tablet. You can actually get a decent amount of work done on it, depending on the applications you need.

iPads and Android tablets are actually quite terrible from a productivity standpoint. Sure, they're great for Angry Birds, Facebook and Twitter, but terrible if you actually want to do something.

I bought a Surface 2 for home, and I'm very happy with my decision. I was very close to going with an Android tablet, because there's so many apps, but decided that I could do so much more with the Surface, even with the lack of apps. No Youtube app is no problem, because the site just works fine.