Joey and thread, Slightly OT
Tuesday June 2, 7:35 pm Eastern Time
ERVIEW-Microsoft CFO backs estimates
By Martin Wolk
SEATTLE, June 2 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. Chief Financial Officer Greg Maffei said Tuesday he was comfortable with Wall Street estimates that its earnings will rise to $0.47 a share in the current fiscal fourth quarter from $0.40 a year ago.
He also said in an interview he was comfortable with estimates that the software company will earn $2.09 a share in the fiscal year beginning July 1, although he cautioned the company was still in the middle of its planning cycle.
On average analysts surveyed by First Call see Microsoft earning $1.76 a share in fiscal 1998, which ends June 30.
Maffei said Japanese revenues were ''not falling off a cliff,'' but growth in the key Asian market had slowed sharply, forcing Microsoft to look elsewhere for growth. European revenues are strong, but growth is slowing there as well due to increasingly difficult comparisons with year-ago figures.
Looking forward, Maffei said he did not expect any of Microsoft's major upcoming products to provide the kind of earnings boost generated by Windows 95 when it was launched nearly three years ago.
The upcoming release of the Windows 98 operating system could boost sales of personal computers but is unlikely to be a blockbuster for retail sales of upgrade software, he said.
Next year's expected release of Windows NT 5.0, while critical for Microsoft, is likely to be a ''slow build'' among enterprise customers, who will be facing the uncertainty of year 2000 software problems at the same time, Maffei said.
Likewise the next major release of Microsoft's Office package, which could come next year, will be aimed at enterprise customers and probably will not produce a major revenue spike at its release, Maffei said.
''I don't see anything out there that's going to have us do a Windows 95-type quarter with 60 percent growth,'' he said.
Maffei also said Microsoft continues look for opportunities to invest in companies that can help accelerate the software company's own development efforts.
He said the company had made 30 acquisitions or strategic investments worth $3 billion since 1994, and the pace continues ''pretty much unabated'' despite speculation that Microsoft would be slowed by the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust concerns.
Maffei said at a Washington Software Alliance investors conference that Microsoft generally looks for companies in new businesses that are not well established and could provide people and technology to fill strategic gaps in areas such as enterprise and Internet tools.
He also said he expected Microsoft to make more acquisitions outside the personal computer arena to improve platforms such as set-top boxes, which will become an increasingly important vehicle to connect with the Internet.
And he said Microsoft would like to make more investments in ''bandwidth,'' both because of the financial opportunity and to speed improvements in data delivery. But he said investments in major telecommunications companies were unlikely because they already have good access to capital.
Ibexx
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