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

To: johnd who wrote (49535)	9/18/2000 3:57:20 PM
From: johnd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Microsoft is on the prowl By CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 3:28 PM ET Sep 18, 2000 NewsWatch Latest headlines SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Microsoft is hunting for new multibillion-dollar businesses to bolster profit and sales growth, said CFO John Connors speaking at the Banc of America Securities conference in San Francisco. Connors said Microsoft executives are unhappy about the company slipping from the world's second-highest valued company a year ago to No. 4 behind General Electric, Intel and Cisco. "But we feel very good about going forward," Connors said. Microsoft's biggest growth catalyst over the next 24 months will focus around software and services for small businesses. But he warned that while Microsoft is making a push toward business services, "don't get excited about revenue in the next 12 months [for the segment]." Connors also made several predictions that Microsoft's (MSFT: news, msgs) research and development spending should increase to $4.4 billion in fiscal 2001 from $3.9 billion a year ago. He said the company will derive 37 percent of revenue from software subscriptions in 2003 vs. about 20 percent currently. Meanwhile, software purchases will decrease to 38 percent of total revenue in 2003, down from 50 percent in fiscal 2000. "When you think about where we are today, we're very focused on one primary thing: growth," Connors said.