Microsoft Corp is assuming the mantle of the typical farmer down to his last Rolls Royce – whatever the weather, it could be better, and business has seldom been more lousy: chief financial officer Michael Brown was the one delivering the tale of woe this time, cautioning that fiscal 1995 second-quarter results might be more difficult to compare on a year-to-year basis than other recent quarters; he said that factors that should be taken into consideration include the upgrade last year of its Office software suite that sold well; he also noted the expected dilutive impact on earnings of the pending Intuit Inc acquisition – although if the Feds take long enough to apdecide on that, it should not be a problem; once the past is safely out of the way, Microsoft is able grudgingly to bring itself to say that it was really rather good, and so Brown admitted that fiscal 1994, which ended in June, had been a year of great products and solid growth, which has continued into fiscal 1995; while Microsoft has a strong market share in the desktop application area, it worries about saturation and competition; he sees a good opportunity in the server market if we can do the job we need to do; its consumer division now has close to 70 titles, he noted; as for operating expenses, these will continue to develop and that the company remains committed to research and development; other factors affecting the company’s 1995 performance include growth of personal computer sales, pricing, saturation of desktops, technology and contingencies such as the litigation brought by Apple Computer Inc, which we thought was dead.
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