By: Azhar Azam
MS Paint lovers, soured over its demise, gets mesmerized as Microsoft rebuffs the rumors and assures to continue their rapport with 32-years old app. "Today we've seen an incredible outpouring of support, and nostalgia around MS Paint..." Dispersing the muddle in a blog on its website, Microsoft announced that "MS Paint is here to stay, it will just have a new home soon, in the Windows Store it will be available for free".
Microsoft, portmanteau of micro-computer and software, is the leading platform and productivity company for mobile-first and cloud-first world. Microsoft refers to Microsoft Corporation and its affiliates, including Microsoft Mobile Oy, a subsidiary of Microsoft. Microsoft Oy develops, manufactures, and distributes Lumia and Asha and Nokia X mobile phones and other devices.
Microsoft acquired Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in May 2011 also completed acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in December 2016.
Headquartered in Redmond, Washington; Microsoft was by two juvenile friends, Paul Allen and Bill Gates in 1975. Paul Allen and Bill Gates had SATs scores of 1600 and 1590 respectively out of 1600; American College Testing (ACT) conversion of 36 and 35 correspondingly.
Only 0.069% of 1.67 million test-takers have scored 1590 or higher. Gates quitted Harvard to start his own business and informed the administration that he could always get back, if the things (Microsoft) didn’t work out.
Microsoft does not sell its software, it licenses its software and retains all ownership rights. Its initial public offering (IPO) for 1-share was $21 in 1986 that has ballooned to 288-shares @ $25 today; $7,200 (34,186%). Although you can create many folders easily in Windows but cannot create a folder named "CON" in Windows.
Microsoft by the Numbers reveals some stunning data about the company. More than 1.2 billion people use Microsoft Office in 140 countries and 107 languages around the world. Microsoft Office has been downloaded 340 million times on iPhones, iPads, and Android devices. It donates an average of $2.6 million in software each day to more than 86,000 non-profits around the world.
It's Fiber Optics Network could stretch to the moon and back - three times over. 80% of the Fortune 500 is on the Microsoft Cloud. More than 400 million devices are running Windows 10 in 192 countries across the world; that's nearly every country on the planet. Microsoft' employees in Redmond, Washington, eat about 984,000 orders of French fries each year in campus cafeterias. Skype users make up to 3 billion minutes of calls each day.
Analysts estimate that Microsoft’s “explosive growth” has produced at least 2-billionaires other than Bill Gates and 12,000-millionaires. “O” was the “blibbet” in the 2nd Microsoft’s logo. When Microsoft announced to retire the “blibbet”, a number of employees ran a campaign “Save the Blibbet”. Microsoft Excel was Microsoft’s killing app that dethroned Apple VisiCalc (visible calculator) spreadsheet and Lotus 1-2-3. Gates, most richest in world believes "leaving kids massive amounts of money is not a favor to them" so would inherit just $10-million apiece from his total wealth of $86 million.
As of 31-March-2017; its employees’ headcount totaled 124,293 worldwide, 73,172 of which are employed in the United States. 73.7% of the total employees are male while 25.8% females are working in the Microsoft. Microsoft’s software employees are called “softies” and an average "softie" earns over $110,000 a year.
Microsoft gives plenty of perks and incentives to its US employees such as medical and hospitalization, vision care, dental care, physician house calls 24-hour health line, on-campus health screening and flu shots, 8-weeks of fully paid maternity leave and 12-weeks of fully paid parental leave to bond their family, savings and investments plan, training and development, and 15 paid vacation, 10 paid sick-leave days, and 10 paid US holidays.
Then there are extras including up to $15,000 volunteer and gift matching, gyms and fitness, on-campus retail shops and sports fields, sports equipment check out, on-campus cafes and kitchens, shuttle and bus fleet, social clubs, discounts, flexible working hours, and electric car charging stations.
Microsoft Announces Financial Results for Q4-2017 and FY2017
Microsoft revenue grew by 5.4% y-o-y, to $90.0 billion as the software giant announced financial results for the Q4-2017 and fiscal year 2017 on Friday. Net income also rose by 26.2%; to $21.2 billion for the year.
Although Product revenue for the year fell by 7.0% to 57.2 billion, however Service and other shouldered the Product’s downfall by relaying growth of 37.5% to $32.8 billion. Product returned net income of 26.5% ($15.2 billion) while Service and other ($19.1 billion) fruited 41.7% to the company. Microsoft spent a total of $13.0 billion on Research and Development in FY2017.
Microsoft owned total cash, cash equivalents, and short-terms investments $125.3 billion at the close of the fiscal year; 17.4% higher than the previous year. It also almost doubled its Goodwill value from $17.9 billion to $35.1 billion (+96.5%).
Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes increased 21%; to $8.4 billion for the Q4-20167. Intelligent Cloud increased 11%; to $7.4 billion for the same period led by 97% growth in Azure revenue that drove 15% increase in server products and cloud services revenue. Revenue in More Personal Computing declined 2%; to $8.8 billion for the quarter driven by mainly lower phone revenue. LinkedIn’s contributed $1.1 billion revenue in the final quarter.
“We delivered a strong finish to the year with 30% growth in commercial bookings”, said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Microsoft. “We will come to invest in key areas that drive growth for Microsoft and our customers.”
In fiscal year 2015, company’s net income growth had slapped by massive 45% despite posting record net revenue of $93.6 billion (8%). FY2016 went the other way; net income growth spread by 38% but net revenue plummeted by 9%.