Pick almost any PC company and odds are it's issued earnings warnings in the last two months: Compaq Computer, Dell, Apple Computer, Gateway... you get the picture. By now it's no secret that the PC market is saturated and IT spending is down worldwide. Microsoft's earnings warning in early December was merely the biggest shoe to drop in the PC sector's nauseating tailspin. But Microsoft has been the Old Faithful of the PC sector as far as earnings go, so its first earnings warning in more than ten years was a particular shock. The warning, which came on the same day that Oracle beat earnings estimates, presents a clear sign that Microsoft's revenue stream remains anchored to the quickly sinking PC sector, and not the high-margin, back-end server market. Microsoft chief financial officer John Connors told analysts that desktop sales were chiefly responsible for the warning.
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