Ballmer Talks Down Hopes of I/T Recovery

Many articles hit the wires last night as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made comments at a company meeting about conditions in the Information Technology industry. ”The economy went through a set of changes on a global basis over the course of the last year which are, I think is fair to say, once in a lifetime,” Ballmer told executives, as reported by the Associated Press. “While we will see growth, we will not see recovery.”

Dell CEO Michael Dell has made similar comments about the enterprise I/T sector, however, other surveys including analysis firm Changewave suggest that the sector will make a slow but real recovery over the coming months.

Microsoft Stock Up 5% As Profits Beat Estimates

Microsoft’s recent cost cutting moves pleased investors today and the company was rewarded with a 5% rise in its stock price as of 3pm today (October 23rd, 2009).

First-quarter net income fell to $3.57 billion, or 40 cents a share, beating the 32-cent average estimate of analysts. Highights from their earning annoucement include:

• The company said it will spend as much as $26.5 billion on operating costs in the year ending June 30, down from a previous forecast for as much as $26.9 billion.
• Microsoft sold more copies of Windows last quarter than in any previous period because of Windows 7 orders and high demand for the older Windows XP used on cheap laptops called netbooks, General Manager Bill Koefoed said in an interview.
• Microsoft’s search engine Bing, released in June, has taken more than a percentage point of market share, according to research firm ComScore Inc. in Reston, Virginia. Microsoft had 9.4 percent of the U.S. search market in September, compared with 64.9 percent for Google Inc. and 18.8 percent for Yahoo! Inc.ComScore said.