Microsoft FY17 Q3 earnings: $23.6 billion in revenue on back of cloud, Office growth

Microsoft has released its earnings report for FY17 Q3 (opens in new tab), showing a total of $23.6 billion in revenue (non-GAAP) and $7.1 billion in net income. That's up from the same period a year ago, in which Microsoft brought in $22.1 billion in revenue and $5.0 billion in net income.

Here are some of the highlights from this quarter's release:

Revenue was $22.1 billion GAAP, and $23.6 billion non-GAAP
Operating income was $5.6 billion GAAP, and $7.1 billion non-GAAP
Net income was $4.8 billion GAAP, and $5.7 billion non-GAAP
Diluted earnings per share was $0.61 GAAP, and $0.73 non-GAAP

As with its previous quarterly earnings, Microsoft points to its Intelligent Cloud business as one of its drivers of growth. Intelligent Cloud revenue was up 11 percent to $6.8 billion thanks largely to a 15 percent increase in cloud services revenue. Office also helped to drive growth, with Office 365 commercial revenue specifically growing 45 percent. Office consumer products and cloud services was also up by 15 percent with the total number of Office 365 consumer subscribers increasing to 26.2 million.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's "More Personal Computing" category, which counts Windows OEM revenue, Surface, gaming and more, paints a different picture. Overall, the category was down 7 percent to $8.8 billion in revenue. Interestingly, the main driver of that decrease was Surface revenue, which fell 26 percent. Every other portion of this category — aside from a $730 million decline in phone revenue — was up. Here's a look at the highlights:

Windows OEM revenue increased 5% (up 5% in constant currency)
Windows commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 6% (up 6% in constant currency)
Surface revenue decreased 26% (down 25% in constant currency)
Search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 8% (up 9% in constant currency)
Gaming revenue increased 4% (up 6% in constant currency)

As usual, Microsoft will hold a conference call and webcast at 2:30 p.m. PT / 5:30 p.m. ET on its investor site (opens in new tab) to discuss the earnings.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the Editor in Chief for Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. Got a hot tip? Send it to daniel.thorp-lancaster@futurenet.com.

134 Comments

Good news!
Bad news for Windows Phone!!!
Great news :) I'd be very interested to see how the renewed growth in pc sales from upgrade cycle, and growth in windows tablets (even growth in win mobile in mature markets) has impacted total users on windows 10, and fed into these profits for licenses and services.
This is why Microsoft doesn't need to focus on mobile. They are a business and will survive and profit with or without mobile. But people will never seem to understand that
Doesn't mean we don't WANT them to. There is no other alternative to mobile OS - Crapple sux and OhSnapdroid is *hit!
It's not just Mobile... "Surface revenue decreased 26% (down 25% in constant currency)" They are losing consumers...
No, they aren't losing consumers. There were less number of consumers buying Surface products due to lack of new products (Surface Studio and Surface Book with Performance Base are still limited).
"There were less number of consumers buying Surface products due to lack of new products" It's not just that. The earnings reports spells out competition from other 2-in-1 manufacturers. Which means that Windows is holding it's own.
The Surface has done its job, demonstrated to OEMs what the hardware should be. Now HP, Dell, and Lenovo, Asus, and others are all making Surface-style systems and the PC business has rebounded. The loss of revenue on that hardware has not led to a loss of Windows users, which is MS' primary concern and reason for building the Surface in the first place.
Well not surprised about that. How many consumers are going to purchase a new surface every year....
You'd be surprised. People will drop $$$ on new phones each year.
not anymore
On phones, yes but certainly no where the same number who will buy a laptop every year.
No, they are gaining customers 26% slower or have had lower prices. They are still gaining customers.
A lot of people are also probably waiting for a refresh of the Surface line this year. It's the reason why I am holding out personally. I want to see what the next generation has to offer, mainly the Surface Book. Then I will make my decision to purchase.
Me too
Or countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal were MS don't sell at all Surface studio and book... As allways it's allways ms fault
I would like to see the ROE on $1 of Surface revenue versus on $1 of Windows OEM revenue. I never thought Microsoft wanted to dominate the Windows device market. Microsoft wants OEM's to shoulder the capital requirements for the manufacturing of most devices running windows. I like my Surface Pro 4. I like my Lumia 950. I like my HP laptop with 7th gen intel processor and SSD. I wish Windows Central would provide better ecosystem coverage. How many Windows Tablets were sold last quarter. How many desktops, laptops, 2-1's, all-in-ones? The only number that matters is the total number of windows devices running in the market. I wonder if Microsoft agreed to allow OEMs 1 full year to market 7th gen devices before Microsoft updated the Surface. Putting a 7th gen iCore in a Surface is simple. I bought my 7th gen Laptop from H last fall. Obviously, Intel is giving OEM's space to build their position in the market.
to their hardware partners. which was the entire point of the surface line
God knows they are the only one with both the software expertise and a pocket book big enough to do it!
If MS give some half *** effort to WP, maybe it won't loose the $730 million decline in phone revenue?
It's best that they kill of the platform instead. All they have managed to do is anger their fans for 7 years. Instead of making their own "mobile" OS they should make money from Android and iOS instead.
P.S. If there was a way that Nokia could own the Windows Phone OS, things would be really interesting. If only...
Edit: The truth hurts but look at how much more money they would make.
Nokia failed in smartphones. They could not deliver a smartphone using their in-house software developers. Then they had a choice. Android or Windows. Microsoft stepped up and said, we will pay you $500 MM a quarter if you choose Windows. Then Microsft shelled out $7 billion to buy the phone business (saving Nokia from bankruptcy. Dosen't anyone remember the state of affairs in 2008/2009? Then Microsoft gave the Nokio team some time to execute the plan. Sell enough phones to maintain a suitable market position. Unfortunately, Microsft failed with windows 8.0 and 8.1. When they decided to rewrite the whole OS and release Windows 10, Windows Phone and the team from Nokia were cut off at the knees.
8.0 and 8.1 didn't fail. Shitya madulla failed them.
The ony reason Nokia took Windows Phone over Android was Elop.
Nokia only "failed" in delivering a smartphone becasue Windows Phone wasn't known and the app gap was huge and that's it.
The hardware Nokia came out with was top notch. If Lumia 920 were released with Android it would've become an instant success with all the firsts it packed: OIS, SuperSensitive touch, Wireless Charging and their own signature stuff from before: Carl Zeiss, etc. Nobody else had those. From a business perspective, WP failed Nokia not the other way around. Having said that, I am happy to own a legendary Lumia 920 in my collection. P.S. 7 billion was basically an insult to Nokia and their brand. Remember that around the same time Facebook acquired WhatsApp for 19 billion dollars.
Nokia was in trouble long before WP. They failed to respond to the changing phone market and it killed them.
In the greater scheme of things, mobile will be the future of personal computing. And there is no mobile computing segment as large, dominant or culture defining as the smartphone currently is. Abandoning this segment is not a option!
Declined revenue, which means people are still buying the aging hardwares, quite impressive actually.
probably because it's still good hardware... I still love my Surface Pro 3 :)
I feel the same about my SP3, rock solid device. I ain't gonna shell out another $1000+ for a upgrade, while this still meets all my needs and then some!
Of course is in decline if you stop manufacturing and stop selling it.....
I disagree, as Microsoft is loosing presence in younger generations of consumers that could become potential users of Microsoft's services when they finish University and College, but instead they will only know how to use an Android or iPhone device, and that is why I think Microsoft should restart a new Mobile strategy to bring a new Mobile OS which is based on open source (OHA Open Handset Alliance)
Mobile is just mobile. Just look at how Windows is doing on 2in1/laptops/desktops. Younger generations do not just have phones.
Mobile devices are the future, they have and will continue to replace more and more of the tasks we used to do on laptops and desktops. And the 10-15 year olds out there know what Android and iOS can do, they also know that Windows can't do that. Why should they want to use windows later on???
Mobile computing might be, but not smartphones necessarily. If the rumoured Surface Mini is on its way then the decline of W10M might be a non-issue
No, mobiles will will replace more and more of the simple tasks consumers perform on devices. Mobiles wont replace decent laptops and desktops in the business world any time soon however.
Mobile is not "just mobile." Mobile is everything.
Luke nutella said "mobile first"... Lol
this category is much more popular with young tech adopters than say, older folk. its definitely an 'in' device the windows hybrid
. kids I know can use windows, android anything and they use it all. if I met a kid who struggled with a windows pc id probably suspect he was raised in the jungle
Yep. I've worked for my large, Fortune 200 company for 15 years and we are a Microsoft house. But the influx of youth and new manangers who have grown on Android and iOS are pushing the company to non-MS services. iPads and Google services are taking over. Chrome OS is being pushed to early adopters around the company. Our hardware vendor just went all-in with Google services. The only thing left here is Windows, Office,and Outlook Enterprise. MS is old hat to the new breed. They aren't cool and it illicits thoughts of BSOD, being bloated, having viruses, being slow, errors galore. MS has some serious work to do in the next 10-20 years or they are the next IBM.
We've been hearing this prophecy of Microsoft's demise for the past twenty years.
Inorder to do a refresh, they'd have to get rid of shitya madulla first. He's not a mobile guy. He's a cloud master. That's his specialty.
This is why MS doesn't need mobile?.... Says the iDroid fan who never visited WPC in his life, or ever knew how great the platform used to be.... Sick of all these ungrateful iDroid fans BullShitz up in here now..... I hope, I pray, one day the shoe is on the other foot.
.............
Maybe now, if it weren't for all these ungrateful iDroid fans this site wouldn't be able to pay the bills,,,, but without Windows on Mobile devices, and WP fans, this site wouldn't be here in the first place, so SHOW SOME DAMN RESPECT!
Umm.. I have had a 920, 520, 1020, 640, 650, and I just ordered a alcatel idol 4s... I am also typing this on my surface pro 4. Soooo... ya
I doubt anybody is disputing if Microsoft will survive the next 20-30 years. They will, the question is in what shape? At the moment they are on a fast track to becoming another IBM, still important for businesses but virtually unknown to the general public. If they don't change soon, windows will be irrelevant within 10-15 years. The kids growing up now, know Android and iOS and they'll want to use that, even for productive work, when they grow up. And it will have the capability by then to do so.
I guess most people only base their opinion on the US, you should know there are other places than the US, Apple might be strong im the US, lots of people outside the US doesn't know MacOs, Android and iOS are still limited compare to full Windows. Windows on arm may change things on mobile, let's wait and see
What is Android? What is iOS? Windows 10 is the strongest OS, providing the best power for computing needs. Obviously, most consumers do not need the higher utility of Windows versus Android or iOS. But that will change as mobile harnesses more and more bandwidth and does more and more tasks. We will see how Android and iOS meet these challenges over the next 10 years.
if that was true most consumers wouldn't use windows and they do
It is not that hard to speculate the AR is going to take over in the future. It is just a matter of time for the device to scale down to a more manageable size and will be replacing the phones. Guess who is in the lead on that now?
Well, Go Bing and find some Ms stock price graphs since they started as a corporation. Yo will be surprised how well they are doing factually....
Goto following link and select "all"..
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/stockdetails/fi-126.1.MSFT.NAS?symbol=MSF...
you know weird kids. where do you live where pcs aren't common af? find me a child that has trouble with technology, really, lol
Yes, close mobile, xbox....no need for that, agree
Not for long...
That's not the problem. People do understand that Microsoft is a business and pursues profit, at least most of them. What they don't understand is why Microsoft keeps lying to them about important decisions and plans, which does actually hurt them as customers. Imagine a person who bought Lumia 950 shortly after release, when Microsoft was repeatedly saying things like "we will keep building phones if no-one else does". Fast forward to the present day and what do you see? Microsoft is winding up its mobile business, releasing no new phones, Windows 10 Mobile in a near maintenance mode and Microsoft keeps radio silence about its next steps, raising doubts about its commitment. This means that the person literally flushed his or her money down the toilet based on Microsoft's false promises. Now, this does not only concern customers but developers too. Many have invested time and energy into building applications for Microsoft's platform based on Microsoft loud announcements of a "mobile first" strategy. Again, fast forward two years and where is that mobile strategy? In ruins. Microsoft ignores its own platform and instead builds better apps for competing platforms (iOS and Android). Its own store is still a barely usable mess. This is a slap in the face followed by a huge middle finger for Microsoft's own developer community; a community on which Microsoft depends if it wants to remain a consumer-facing company. To sum up: yes, Microsoft has a full right to discontinue unprofitable business. That's how corporate capitalism (unfortunately) works and people generally understand and accept that. But that does not relieve Microsoft of the need to behave decently. If Microsoft wants to shut down Windows Phone/Mobile, fine, but announce it to the customers so that they know what's happening. Tell them "We're sorry, it did not work out, we will maintain your product for another two years and then shut it down. We recommend that you do XY. We apologize for the inconvenience we caused" or something like that. Be honest. Don't be evil. Is it that hard?
It does not work that way. When did Apple announce the iPhone? Out of the blue, nobody expected it and for sure it was not pre-announced. Same with the nextgen ultramobile device MS is working on. They will announce it when it is ready, not a second earlier. And the moment it is announced they will highlight the USP of the new device and they will manage audiences something like : "you will now understand why we have been so silent on W10M as this device is a game changer re-setting the mobile paradigm etc. "
And then you will wake up. I am talkng about how Microsoft treats its customers and developers. Instead of communicating with them openly about its plans and intentions, it deceives them and then leaves them abandoned. This is not how you build customer loyalty; it is a way how to make sure your former customers will never ever buy anything from you again.
Apple never announced any major release prior. telegraphing market strategy before its ready would be beyond stupid
Mobile is the future though, especially in Enterprise. It will be a main driver for everything else: services, apps, storage, IoT, data, etc... If someone or a business can get phone/PC/tablet and all their services/apps RELIABLY on one ecosystem they are more likely to go that way, and this is something MS does not posses because they are giving up on mobile!
so wonder where people are now b1tch1ng on Nadella's cap that's he should resign and stuff :) Microsoft is doing great - yes aside from mobile which I'm still an avid user of though :)
Surface revenue also decreased 26% it went up 67% same quarter last year.
did you actually see the 1,5 billion revenue and 2,1 billion net income increase in the article?
I believe he's just pointing out what everyone is already saying. Microsoft is becoming an Azure/O365 company for commercial and enterprise customers. They are losing all their credibility (profits) as a consumer technology company.
I honestly think you'd be surprised how many consumer clients they have on O365... Azure is business related indeed. In the end, they still remain a software company. Aside from that, all computer sales are in decline so no surprise that after the great revenue from Surface last year to see a decline this year. Also people are waiting for Surface Pro to be refreshed and that shows in the numbers as well I think. Just my 2 cents...
No, pc sales see a 0,6% increase, so they are stabilyzing, not in decline
consensus is consumer pc _turnover_ has decreased, but ownership is about the same, and gaming pcs have grown a lot. We are currently in an upgrade cycle, while smartphones and everything else are slowin turnover. so more or less 'my phone is just as good as that overpriced new thing, our tablets going to last us for awhile, but my pcs getting a bit ancient, time for a new one". the wows worn off, for these touch techs. its a more practical call now. only thing that's changed is more devices, but seeing phones etc have kind of technically peaked, software and hardware all very same year to year, we might see even more growth in pcs where performance gains are more practically impactful, and deliver additional functionality and tangible benefits. Think turnover for phones will slow to iPad level
Microsoft has been an enterprise software company first for at least 20 years. This shouldn't surrpise you. They've never been a consumer darling.
Uh, they are still making a healthy profit. I would hazard a guess that they are the second most profitable hardware company in this space right now.
I agree Microsoft is on the right path, was just pointing out the only thing that was down and eagerly looking forward to Build and q4.
probably because the sales of the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book propped those quarters up last year while there wasn't a new launch to do the same thing this year. you can't honestly look at that and think it proves the Surface is starting to fail lol, any level of common sense tells you why there is a decrease
Or not doing any marketing campaign on mass media, they have just saturated their own market niche, like with wp/wm...
Who cares that isn't core business its a software demo platform. its no wonder I mean Lenovo etc are all cheaper
Yes but Mobile is still in red numbers due to poor developers support. UWP has lost steam, and Microsoft needs to send a signal that they're still interested in smartphone business for consumers. Just as a fact, IDC reported today that smartphone shipments grew by 4.3% in 2017, and expected growth was 3.6% article here http://www.zdnet.com/article/smartphone-shipments-are-still-on-the-rise-...
But almost ALL of that smartphone "shipment" growth was in China, to Chinese manufacturers.
Google's phone sales are down.
Apple's phone sales are down (and iPad sales have fallen off a cliff)
Samsung's phone sales are down (mostly due to the S7 debacle)
Chinese Phone Manufacturers sales are way up and climbing.
Yeah. Market analysts knew this would happen before the trends even started towards budget. Its a typical tech good pattern 'saturation'. the bottoms going to fall out hard soon. consumers will be practical, price conscious. gaudy flashy premium products become a bit of a yawn. btw windows and budget tablets are the only growth sectors there. so windows has a momentum nothing else does in tablets
to be fair though, iPhone is still 'cool' in emerging markets like india. that'll probably endure for longer because of that.
Hmm. Apple's Q1 FY17 revenue was ~75 billion dollars. Their net income was 18 billion. Their main money maker is the iPhone. You still think that a phone is not needed to boost the revenue and income. A general user will replace a computer once every 5-6 years, but would replace a phone every 2 years. Phones cost around the same amount as most mid range computers and have about the same profit margin as a phone.
ouch that's going to hurt as it shrinks. what are we down to now, 4% global growth, and losses in premium across mature markets? the train wreck or redemption will be literally captivating.... I'm pumped to watch how they deal with the bottom falling out of the premium market and switch to budget
Of course i say the damages of nadella will show not in the near term...
Surface down 25% though, need some new models - we will see on May 2nd
Yeah, Surface down doesn't mean anything as two plus year old devices are due to be replaced! Surface rules!
Agreed need new surface models as noting new for a while now
But people here have told me they are on the edge of collapse because of their mobile strategy, or lack there of. Edit: In fact, we were told that gaming (Xbox) was dying, Windows was dead with iOS and Android taking over, and so on. The only part where they seem down is with Surface, which could be updated in literally days.
The fact is that the market surprised IDC expectations, and Mobile shipments grew up 4.3%, expected growth was just 3.6%, what this tells is that consumers still interested in smartphones and Microsoft sill has enough time to create a new OS based on Android cloned ecosystem which can run Android apps, they just need to create a appstore like Amazon does with FireOS tablets.
The Windows Store and UWP is by far superior to Amazon's apps and app store.
Except the Amazon app store actually has apps.
Except that Windows has 16 million apps, plus the million plus in the Windows Store.
Amazon counts 600,000. WS over 700,000. Windows has more. Amazon is pretty bereft these days
Nope. Growth that slow is right next to negative. What it tells us is theres a tiny bit of juice left in emerging markets like India, and the writing is in the wall - for premium sales driving mass profit - very close to over. in other words, everything will go budget and the parties almost over. Worse for apple than Samsung, but Samsung seems to be feeling it first. When margins go razor thin, only major winner is Google for search ads (until voice makes ads too annoying). amazon will probably lose their share. budget is way more competitive. its like a dog fighting pit. that number is literally a signal of the beginning of the end for major profits in phone sales. Making an android phone would be basically being servant to Google, unless you have your own products to pimp on people like amazons advertising fire OS. anyone with a comparably cheap product with more apps or better OS will beat them - china can do it cheaper.
Cant think of a better time for an xphone pippgy back off switch sucsses. A phone that can play xbox games on the go would make money.
It wouldn't. Sony has done that with their far far more popular PlayStation and their Xperia phones and it didn't help their mobile division from continuing to bleed money and lose market share on Android.
can their kernel share code across desktop, console and mobile?
Sony just streams locally through wifi I know im a sony fan as well still have the z3+ hand warmer. Im talking full blown xbox games loaded on phone. So i can sit at the doctors office and play skyrim. Not just sit in my bedroom and stream from my ps4.
Well, then you're delusional. No phone in existence has the computational power to natively run full blown Xbox games on it. In 10 years, maybe. Today, impossible.
Switch isn't going to sell much. Mobile gaming is growing because of phones. That's why we need a true portable gaming phone hybrid. Especially with the ability to share code across console pc and mobile
Check out albion online....its aready here...to bad its andriod and pc not win phone :)
In the other news Samsung just posted a whooping 44B in revenue!!
How much was their profit?
8B
That's quite a drop. Was definitely more last year. they will not be pleased. S8 doesn't seem to be selling like they thought either. Be interesting to watch their next plays
No It's a record profit
Maybe if Microsoft produced washers, dryers, microwaves, vacuums, televisions, fridges, freezers, etc the numbers would be closer?
I never liked revenue numbers without context to profit. For every dollar in revenue, Microsoft kept 21.7 cents ($4,801/$22.09) in latest quarter versus the prior year quarter of 18.3 cents($3,756/$20,531) in the prior year quarter. This is why you buy Microsoft. Few companies are this profitable. But the big question is growth. Will Microsoft grow? Apple grew phenomoly by selling iPhones to consumers. They have minimal presence in the Enterprise (the iOS just doesnt have the juice). If micorosft could have a 20% in the smartphone business, they growth would be huge. But, they failed. Thankfully they have the cloud and the enterprise is buying what Microsoft is selling. They made 28% ((4801-3756)/3756)) more money this quarter version the previous years quarter. Anyone out there recieve a 28% raise?
Smartphones are already negative in mature markets I believe. that boom is winding up. hope apple has a plan b
not really
After several quarters of lost growth in phones, and four years in tablets. Good thing they have TVs to fall back on!
https://mobile.twitter.com/thurrott/status/857692748719300610 I am assuming this quote is from the call. Windows phones officially dead?
In your mind it already was. Move along.
Yeah, for sure. Now it seems to be official though. Assuming this will be an article of its own.
It means that Microsoft officially doesn't sell Lumia anymore. As they have no licensing for Windows 10 Mobile their revenue is 0, but it doesn't mean HP and Alcatel (or whomever) won't sell some.
Plus, I believe Microsft recieves some royalties from Android, although that maybe ending.
it owns patents on smart phone techs. they get licensing from oems
They got licensing, but as most of those patents are from 90s their validity has expired or will expire soon.
Like Google they make money from services and search.
But that's not the revenue of this division of the company in this report.
A tweet from the prescient pessimist. most authorative lol
I think they could have been better
Guess your right. where's our flying cars and robot maids aye?
I have a surface pro 4 for my personal system and a Lenovo x1 yoga from work. Surprise to me I prefer the yoga to the SP4 screen is much bigger and it's much faster and the keyboard is the best in the business
Windows "phone" is dead, but Windows "on all devices" is not. MS will deliver a new mobile category, build 17 makes the most sense.
The decrease on Surface revenue is expected. The Surface Pro 4 was released in 2015 and that was the last worldwide launched Surface product. So the bulk of sales has been done hence the slowing down in sales. Which is also normal now that the Surface Pro 5 is coming. As for the Surface Book and Surface Studio, both had very limited releases with just a handful of countries around the world getting them so they would never have any impact on the decrease of the division.
Like no italy and spain.... Damn!
Come on Microsoft. Stop living in cloud and come to ground where many people use phones as their primary device.
Microsoft stock price is severely undervalued.
They were earning so much from mobile... Why would they call it failure? They should give us the profits!
because it tanked
How's this compare to Googles and Apples??
Anyone know?
Current dunno. It's more. But historically last few years have been a real step up for ms. that cash flows gotta help with all the development plans
I have the bad feeling that Nadella will be remebered as the worst CEO in MS history. The cloud success is just a transitory factor, in an historical moment where could computing is an evolution step that all the IT industry is bounded to take. Sure Microsoft cloud is a very good service, but truth is that every could services player is doing good these days, for the aforementioned reasons.
Nadella vision is like being stuck in 1999. He sees Microsoft value only as a corporate business, and as a matter of fact since his arrival he's been directly or indirectly weakening all the consumer areas from mobile to gaming to personal devices from Microsoft Band to Surface devices.
Most of what Microsoft has done and hardly earned to get out of the solid but claustrophobic niche of corporate business it's being systematically thrown away.
On the medium term this will be one of the greatest disgrace for Microsoft, unless the future of IT and consumer electronic in 2027 will be people using separated devices at home and office, and portable/wearable devices just for practical reasons like phone conversation. Welcome in 1998 Microsoft by Satya Nadella.
yeah I'm sure that's exactly what onecore and cshell will be. lol!
Devices like Surface Book or Surface Studio don't help. They are way too expensive for what they are (and in the case of Surface Book there are a lot of cheaper yet more powerful alternatives). Surface Pro hasn't had a real successor for 3 since three years (4 was a minor update with basically a new pen and a new keyboard cover). Surface non-pro has been left dying even longer. They need to bring in affordable solutions in the $400 to $900 range to actually grow the whole Surface line. It's been sitting at 1 billion a quarter since twelve or so quarters now, there is no growth. Bring out that bezel-less Surface Pro 5 from your future tech video and all is good.
Profit from hw was not supposed to be the point. Although agreed driving budget arm based tablets and hybrids will win windows 10 marketshare
Wow they are growing fast again. Nice. Also 6 billion revenue from an overpriced software demo platform is cream on top ( I thought they just let the partners take over but if its making money why not ride it). All that extra windows tablet, server and desktop market share is driving services... When they get windows on arm, think windows is going to kill in budget tablets. Nothing but great news here! :)
But that can't be right? People claim Microsoft is failing. Lol.

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