Here comes the fourth quarter results for FY07 and some peering into what FY08 has in store. Well, as much as we're willing to reveal. My favorite post analysis sites for the results:
I'll summarize what folks are saying and link to their posts later.
Some articles started showing up earlier in the week forecasting what the results might be and that totally got derailed by Mr. Peter Moore leaving Microsoft for a better, family friendly job location with Electronic Arts in the Bay area. I know a lot of gopher heads popped up questioning, "Accountability? In action? At Microsoft?"
That was quickly put to rest. Of course, even if Mr. Moore was asked to head for the nearest exit, we wouldn't want to piss him off over at EA. So, I'm marking this up as how it was presented, with zero amount of accountability being exhibited. Again. Whatever the SPSA metrics are for this upcoming shower of gold, I'm sure none of the bad news around Xbox will affect the payout.
What do you think will be the interesting parts of the end of FY07 results?
What questions would you ask if you were on the conference call?
Some topics:
Vista: how is deployment? And analysts will probably fish for news on SP1, given that SP1 should increase Vista deployment. To me, the secondary issue is around Vista 3rd party drivers. I still walk into people's office and see some cool device and hear, "Yeah, well, when the Vista drivers are released I'll be able to use it again..."
Oh, and hey Windows Vista: you remember Chris Pirillo? Let me jog your memory: (1) Copying Xerox, Vista Mistakes, and VP and Perspectives (2) There's Ray! Plus: Plenty of Room For More Brains at Microsoft. Don't shrug him off as a whiny complainer nor doubt his ability to get press, because last week the Chris Pirillo focused "6 Months Later, a Report Card on Vista" / "Six Months On, Vista Users Still Griping" / "Little Annoyances Still Big Vista Issue" took its sweet time spreading to about every news site I read.
Acquisitions: probably we should hear a question about aQuantive and how things are looking there. It would be nice to also conjecture about other acquisition targets... I know, we can't. Again, I would enjoy Microsoft acquiring Facebook and then letting only the best people help them build it out (e.g., sorry, no one from Spaces allowed - you had your chance and you'd probably be bitter). Of course, when it comes to acquiring Facebook, Scoble says we ain't good enough.
Duuude. We're well over having the Microsoft network membership pass one-fifth the number of current employees. We're not just dating Facebook here. We're (leaning forward with a knowing glance) involved. Ooo! I'm going to invite Bill Gates to be my friend on Facebook right now... okay, done.
Staffing: last year, Mr. Bishop was the first to gather that Microsoft had an explosive year in employee growth. How bad is it going to be this year? And who the hell are all these people? What parts of the company are growing and what is the demand that the growth is addressing? How the hell can we sustain this growth globally let alone poor little cluster f'd Redmond / Bellevue? It just makes my language go to pot.
Anti-Trust concerns: the elephant in the room. Do we expect any discussion about Europe progress, let alone the US? We yanked Google's anti-trust chain for the DoubleClick acquisition, now they are yanking our anti-trust nipple ring around desktop search.
(Later...)
Follow-up posts to our earnings announcement:
- Seattle-PI: Microsoft quarterly profit, ad revenues rise
- Seattle-PI: Slowing of headcount growth! Microsoft hiring slows from last year's record pace - Mexican Hat Dance time! Yes, I'm one broken blogger, down to celebrating moderate employee growth vs. actually shrinking and mini-fying Microsoft. Perhaps we finally woke up from our hiring bender, uttered, "Holy frickin' Nelly!" and things will start being far more reasonable.
- Mary Jo Foley: New hires, datacenter investments evident in Microsoft earnings - looks at data center growth and employee growth in certain parts of the company (hmm, maybe the field is exploding).
- MSFTextrememakeover Q4-07 Earnings
- Microsoft Watch - Corporate - Microsoft Q4 2007 by the Numbers - Office 2007 outshining Vista?
I was surprised that Liddell shrugged off the importance of Vista SP1. If it was an attempted Jedi Mind Trick, he forgot to wave his hand.
Other goings on:
- Oooo, you wiley Facebook, I'm even more intrigued with your acquisition of Parakey. I've had my eye on Parakey for a while given that they started implementing something that reminds me of a question Dave Winer posed on Scripting News way back in the late 90s. And of course, the wine loving devil on my shoulder is just tickled with the prospect of Microsoft acquiring Facebook while Blake Ross is an employee.
- What do you know, Google stock can actually go the other direction.
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