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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Teflon who wrote (25285)	6/30/1999 5:39:00 PM
From: taxman	Respond to of 74651

MICROSOFT CFO SEES Q4 EPS INCREASING 1 CENT DUE TO ACCOUNTING CHANGE. regards

To: Teflon who wrote (25285)	6/30/1999 5:47:00 PM
From: johnd	Respond to of 74651

CFO said VERY comfortable with Q4 estimate and in fact guided to raise by a penny at this point. Looks like MSFT is getting forced to defer less into reserves, thus SEC, accounting change, etc..

To: Teflon who wrote (25285)	6/30/1999 5:48:00 PM
From: Gopher Broke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

How can it open up lawsuits? The change was mandated by an amendment to the accounting standards. Microsoft had no choice in the matter.

To: Teflon who wrote (25285)	6/30/1999 5:55:00 PM
From: t2	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 74651

Here is my understanding. 1-Deferal on Office and Windows reduced to 15 to 25% (from 20 to 35%) as a result of new accounting standards. Basically they are following the new standards. 2-Restating Income statements to increase revenues and increase expenses. This restatement is voluntary to ensure consistency among product lines. 3-SEC investigation. MSFT stated that is unrelated to the above two items. Maffei speculated that it resulted due to a former employee and a WSJ article back in January regarding the way MSFT takes reserves (unearned revenues). Maffei stated that MSFT is following accounting standards. He stressed that this investigation is totally unrelated to items 1 and 2. 4-"very comfortable" with current estimates. BTW--My feeling is that they are being investigated for taking reserves that are too big. However, Maffei stated that they follow accounting standards.