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

To: J. P. who wrote (9354)	7/16/1998 6:03:00 PM
From: Martin A. Haas, Jr.	Respond to of 74651

JP and others, from WSJ: Microsoft Posts Strong Results As Its Revenue Climbs 26% An INTERACTIVE JOURNAL News Roundup Microsoft Corp., as usual, posted strong earnings for its latest period Thursday as revenue increased 26%, greater sales growth than analysts had expected. For the fourth fiscal quarter ended June 30, the Redmond, Wash., software giant reported net income of $1.36 billion, or 50 cents a diluted share, a 28% gain over the $1.06 billion, or 40 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Company Profile: Microsoft The results were slightly above the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by First Call for net income of 48 cents a share, but were in line with the "whisper" numbers circulating on Wall Street Thursday. Revenue, meanwhile, rose to $4 billion from $3.18 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 1997. For the year, Microsoft reported net income of $4.49 billion, or $1.67 a diluted share, on revenue of $14.48 billion. That compared with net income of $3.45 billion, or $1.32 a share, on revenue of $11.36 billion for fiscal 1997. The company's latest full-year results included a $296 million write-off of acquired in-process technology related to the purchase of WebTV. Excluding the one-time write-off, earnings were $1.78 per share for fiscal 1998, a 35% increase over fiscal 1997. Shares of Microsoft were unchanged at $117.375 on the Nasdaq Stock Market Thursday. The results were released after the close of trading. Microsoft said the "great" year for all of its major products was capped by strong initial results from Windows 98. The company said more than one million retail licenses of Windows 98 upgrades have been purchased in North America since the product's June 25 release. Microsoft said its Windows NT workstation reached an installed base of 15 million units, while deployments of Windows NT server increased 200% in Fortune 1,000 companies in the past 12 months. Microsoft, typically, cautioned analysts last quarter that it expected slower revenue growth in the balance of the calendar year because of a tapering product-upgrade cycle. And, indeed, growth did slow on a sequential basis, with revenue growing only 5% compared with the third fiscal quarter's 15% sequential jump. But the company's sales growth still topped estimates, and its financial statements remain the envy of the high-tech world. The company's statements indicate that it could get an earnings boost from Windows 98 sales in coming quarters; Microsoft is very conservative in its accounting practices and usually spreads out sales of new operating systems over several periods. But the fourth quarter's numbers were primarily tied to Windows NT, said Salomon Smith Barney Inc. analyst Neil Herman. Windows NT, which runs the servers that host computer networks, and its suite of server applications called BackOffice are increasingly becoming Microsoft's most important growth engine. Regards, Marty