xbox 360 and zune are both old news, of course they are selling less.

And world + dog is waiting for windows 7.

Microsoft has many divisions, but only 2 consistently make money: windows and office.

Windows (client division) is seeing declining sales. That's big news.

The socialists in the EU will not be happy until they get every dime that Microsoft has. Same goes for Intel. then they will go down the ladder until no one but the bureaucrats have anything.

well, thats what happens when you try to sell a turd wrapped up in an expensive fancy box.

do your homework MS!

the next offering will indicate if lessons have been learned or not but so far i dont think they have learned from their pista pricing mistakes...

MS well deserved this.

With Vista Microsoft have caused economic harm to the customers who trusted in them.

There is a very large difference in Microsoft having a drop in two divisions (Client and Devices) and Apply having a drop in to divisions. Apple only two breadwinners, the iPod/Phone and OS X, and Microsoft has way more (see Enterprise Apps, Enterprise OS, Office, App Development, etc.).

The Xbox/Zune area has traditionally been a money hole, so no surprises there. And yes, the Windows division is expected to be down, who in their right mind would be buying Vista now with Windows 7 knocking on the door?

It was slashed by a third because Microsoft killed the reception party at Microsoft TechEd North America this year and ticked every major network engineer who purchase MS products off? Or was it becuase Vista is a pure piece of crap and MS doesn't currently have anything on the market selling until Win7 (which is awesome by the way..) hits the shelves this Oct.. Maybe its a combination of both...

While journalists are very harsh, maybe too much, on Vista, it's interesting that they seem to be very light on Microsoft's financials.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10294232-56.html

For example, the Client division which includes Windows and the Entertainment and Devices division which includes the XBox and the Zune both had a 25% drop in revenue. The Inq seems to be putting a bright spin on everything by noting that it's still great that they are making a large absolute profit even if it's fallen. In contrast, I think it's safe to say that if Apple had reported a 25% drop in OS X or iPod revenue, everyone would be all over it.

Regardless of what people may think about Apple's strategy, there is no doubt that it is working. Microsoft has just reported what appears to be their worst quarter ever and have reported that PC sales have declined 5-7% in the last quarter while Apple has just reported that they had their best non-holiday quarter ever, Mac units sold has actually increased over last year despite the recession and the overall PC market contracting, and Macs have increased their market share to 90% of computer sold at $1000 and up.