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Tough Times for Bill

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REDMOND (Rixstep) -- 'They' say Xmas comes but once a year. 'They' lie.

Times are tough for Microsoft. And whilst Microsoft claim it's only part of a recession there are other statistics to indicate otherwise.

MS Online Ad Revenues

Microsoft's online advertising effort lost nearly half a billion USD last quarter. They only lost a quarter billion same time last year. For these two quarters for the past two years they've lost nearly $750 million.

Not bad.

Tanking Xbox

Revenues for 2007 got walloped by an outlay of $1 billion for Xbox difficulties - one of the reasons this year's revenues appear to be more promising.

Stock Down

News of the quarterly results tumbled Microsoft stock by nearly 6% down to $25.

It's the Economy

Spokespersons for Microsoft dismiss the clouds. 'This is the area where we're seeing direct impact from the economic slowdown', says MS CFO Chris Liddell about the Microsoft online advertising business.

Yeah right. And the tug o' war with Yahoo doesn't help either. And now Jerry Yang have sent a letter to all Yahoo stockholders slamming Carl Icahn and Microsoft.

'Your Board of Directors believe strongly the Icahn-Microsoft agenda as presented to us jointly last week will destroy stockholder value at Yahoo!' reads their statement.

Nobody likes Microsoft anymore. Not even the money.

All About Google

As for a recession hurting the advertising industry: forget it. The same quarter Microsoft lose half a billion Google report revenues of $5.37 billion. Google shares profit $4.63 as opposed to a meager $0.48 for Microsoft stock. And Google continue to gain, not lose, market share. Amongst others from Microsoft.

Current estimates give Google approximately 70% of the entire share market.

Not bad. And when Google finally integrate their new acquisition of DoubleClick it can get even better.

Office Share Dwindling

Microsoft are even losing in their traditional home market: the office. The Telegraph Media Group recently announced they will be phasing out their Microsoft Office and Exchange deployments and turning to Google Apps in the future.

Daily Telegraph owners TMG may only represent 1,400 MS licences but it may be a sign of the times, say Macworld UK.

Apple Too

Even Apple seem to be feeling their oats. The Cupertino company will report their results on Monday; analyst Shaw Wu predicts they'll beat their guidance of $7.2 billion.

'We are looking for 2.5 million Macs, 10.5 million iPods, and 705,000 iPhones', wrote Wu on 18 July; whilst Apple reported significantly higher iPhone sales already the first weekend.

Shaw Wu goes on to predict AAPL revenues of over $8 billion in the next quarter.

Not bad.

And now Microsoft are trying to strike a deal with AOL.

It just gets better and better.

See Also
Macworld UK: Apple to beat expectations - analyst
Macworld UK: Telegraph takes Google, dumps Microsoft
Macworld UK: Report - Microsoft in talks for a deal with AOL
Macworld UK: Yahoo letter to shareholders slams Microsoft, Icahn
Macworld UK: International markets continue to drive Google growth

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