billwg wrote:
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
> >A lot of anti-MS tripe, but somehow...
>
> "SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. posted an 11 percent rise in
> quarterly net profit on Thursday, boosted by a strong performance at
> its database division and shrinking losses from its Xbox 360 video game
> console."
I'd really be curious to see what the unit volumes in terms of DB
licenses and Server licenses were, especially in terms of units
actually deployed.
Microsoft did force many NT 4.0 users to "upgrade or die". Some of
those servers, which were licensed at very low costs, often as low as
$1500/server and were covered under moderately priced support controcts
- were converted to Windows 2000 or Windows 2003, which had license
fees as high as $15,000 per CPU for "Enterprise" or "Data Center"
edition. Even though these prices are negotiable, there was a
substantial increase in license fees. In addition, there were
corresponding increases in support fees. Windows 2003 with SQL Server
2003 was much faster than Windows NT 4.0 with SQL Server 7, but at a
substantially higher price.
On the other hand, many of those NT 4.0 servers were simply switched to
Linux. Some were replaced by bringing them back into AIX or Solaris as
logical partitions. AIX for example, can be broken into as many as 16
LPARs per CPU and a P/590 can have up to 64 CPUs which can run Linux or
AIX in the LPARs.
Many of these licenses were replacements for previous licenses. The
performance and capacity of computers doubles every 18 months, and when
you have a $60,000 license for a 4 CPU system, it's common practice to
put the fastest machine you can afford into that License. Some of
these machines were also upgraded to 64 bit capacity, which involved
additional upgrade and licensing and support costs, as well as new or
extended contract periods. Some of these servers will generate revenue
for Microsoft until 2010, even if the servers themselves were taken out
of service.
Other studies have shown that the cost per function point for Windows
is high and going up.
Revenue and unit volumes support this conclusion. The power and
capacity of UNIX and Linux boxes goes up while total cost per
application goes down.
Even if I spend $250,000 on a P-590, if it can do the work of as few as
50 Windows boxes, it's still ahead of the game. Keep in mind, the
P-590 can recover from CPU failures, moving load to the functional CPUs
and taking the nonfunctional unit offline and letting the operator know
that it needs to be swapped out (hot swap). The same is true with the
storage arrays.
A rack of Linux blades can have up to 128 processors. These can be
attached to storage arrays which again allow redundancy and fast swap
in clusters. Many applications are now being developed to support
cluster technology, including databases, web services, and SOA
services.
Linux Server revenue is growing, and has become a very profitable
market for vendors. It has also been shown to benefit the profit
margins of corporate customers. The most dramatic examples being
companies like Google and E-Trade.
Windows Server revenue is growing more slowly, and offers high profit
margins to Microsoft, but little or no profit margin to the vendors.
> "In after-hours trade, Microsoft shares rose to $28.50 from a close of
> $28.35 on Nasdaq."
After Hours trading on a fast reading of a report is rarely a bright
move. Fewer buyers, and more limit driven orders tends to push the
"Market" rate substantially higher than regular trading.
What's sad is that the increase was so slight. Microsoft exceeds
expectations by 20% posts an 11% increase in revenue, and the stock
goes up less than 1%. Sounds like investor confidence is low. Maybe
the big institutional investors know something we don't?
> Chump! LOL!!!
Sad.
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