The other problem is that Microsoft cannot seem to stop spending money hand-over-fist. Bing cost money to develop and is now costing billions to advertise, while many business units contiune to sell products at an outright loss. For instance, strong sales of Xbox units actually cut into profit figures, because of the loss made on each sale. Unless these are backed by strong enough sales of Microsoft-branded games, to make up for the outlay (which has never happened, yet, and will probably never happen, given how much the project has cost), then these sales will remain as a permanent loss of income.

Diluting ths stock didn't help, either. When there are actually 10 microsoft shares, for every human being on the planet, you have to wonder how much each one can be expected to pay out. What is the solution to that dilemma? Buy some shares back? Microsoft does that all the time, but then issues even more replacement shares into the market as it does so; hitting its profits (via the buy backs, which amount to billions of dollars, each quarter), while hampering its ability to issue healthy dividends in the future. Microsoft is now one of the biggest single traders in its own stock.

Now that it is clear that Microsoft does not own the rights on butt clamps I also expect there profits to decline...

linq: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1468999/microsoft-patented-butt-clamp