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To: LK2 who wrote (5836)	3/11/1999 11:03:00 PM
From: LK2	Respond to of 9256

MSFT conference call. Microsoft CFO Sees Strong Worldwide Demand For PCs. For Personal Use Only >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> dailynews.yahoo.com Thursday March 11 8:02 PM ET Microsoft CFO Sees Strong Worldwide Demand For PCs By Martin Wolk SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Chief Financial Officer Greg Maffei said Thursday worldwide demand for personal computers remains strong despite a typical seasonal slowdown in sales. ''We've seen some preannouncements, some rumors of preannouncements, some speculation that the PC business is falling apart,'' Maffei said in a conference call with analysts. ''All evidence that we see suggests that is not true.'' The conference call, which was open to reporters, was called on short notice mainly to discuss how the company would account for the final copies of Office 97 now being shipped to customers with coupons good for a free upgrade to Office 2000. But Maffei also said he wanted to calm concerns expressed by some investors about the overall market for personal computers. ''There is a seasonal slowdown just like every year,'' Maffei said. ''The business is fine. The revenue side is coming in just as we expected and we're quite happy with the progress of this quarter.'' Maffei said Microsoft earnings for the current fiscal third quarter should be in line with expectations despite plans to defer $400 million in revenue for accounting reasons, Maffei said. While the news was seen as neutral, Maffei's bullish comments on the state of the computer market could carry some weight in the surging stock market, analysts said. ''It will be seen as a positive,'' said Chris Galvin of Hambrecht and Quist. ''The indications were that December was a good quarter and March wasn't. Now it may not be as bad as many were fearing.'' Maffei said the $400 million in so-called unearned revenue, related to the forthcoming release of the Office 2000 software package, would be offset by an increase in investment income. That will allow the company to meet the Wall Street consensus estimate for its current fiscal third quarter, currently at 65 cents a share, according to First Call, compared with 50 cents a share a year earlier. The ''vast majority'' of the unearned Office revenue will be recognized in the fourth quarter, resulting in an earnings increase of about 8 cents a share, he said. The new version of Office, Microsoft's hugely profitable package of word processing and spreadsheet software, will be released to manufacturing by the end of March and widely available in the next quarter, Maffei said. As it has done with past versions of Office, Windows and other software shipped with such coupons, Microsoft will report much of the Office 97 revenue as ''unearned revenue'' on its balance sheet for the current quarter. Maffei said analysts who had been projecting revenue for the current quarter at $4.6 billion should reduce their projections accordingly to $4.2 billion. He noted, however, that Microsoft has been typically conservative in its guidance and could ''achieve a little upside'' on the revenue front. Still, the revenue figures represent an expected sequential slowdown from the second quarter, when Microsoft exceeded all estimates with revenues of $4.94 billion. Maffei also said the company is seeing a slight increase in computer shipments in Japan and is benefiting from an improvement in foreign exchange rates. Earlier Stories Microsoft CFO Comfortable With Q3 Earnings Estimates (March 11) Copyright © 1999 Reuters Limited biz.yahoo.com Thursday March 11, 9:44 pm Eastern Time (Note: this article is ''in progress''; there will likely be an update soon.) AFTER THE BELL - Techs rise in after-hours trade NEW YORK, March 11 (Reuters) - Shares in major technology companies Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news), Prodigy Communications Corp. (Nasdaq:PRGY - news), America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) and Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news) all got a boost in after-hours U.S. trading on Thursday. Microsoft traded at 162-1/2, up from 161-7/16. The company planned to update analysts on its quarterly business. Prodigy was at 41-1/4, up from 40-3/4 after it reported a drop in earnings. AOL traded at 95-3/4, up from the close of 95-5/8. Intel was at 118-1/2 from 118-1/8. After reporting increased earnings, software company Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq:ORCL - news) was at 36-1/4, down from the closing price of 36-7/8. CMGI Inc. (Nasdaq:CMGI - news), which develops Internet companies, was at 182 from 182-1/2 after it reported a second quarter profit. (Note: this article is ''in progress''; there will likely be an update soon.) Copyright © 1999 Reuters Limited <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<