According to BusinessWorld:
Microsoft Australia announced that profits in that country had fallen in the financial year ended June 30 2005 from AUD40.5m to AUD25.7m. Yet Australian sales topped AUD1bn.
The article goes on to say that Microsoft Ireland made a gross profit of E7.5bn and that the Irish profit accounts for over 22pc of the USD40bn in gross profit made by the company last year.
That news doesn't get a mention on their local press page.
15 million drop in profit!
Man, how much did you get paid out!!!!!!
;)
Molly
Posted by: Phillip Molly Malone | Wednesday, November 09, 2005 at 04:14 PM
yeah I think that whole profit hole can be attributed to me not being there anymore. LOL.
Posted by: Cameron Reilly | Wednesday, November 09, 2005 at 04:59 PM
Yeah, I've got a feeling they lifted those figures from the story I broke in the Fin that day about Microsoft's local revenues (yeah, I know the story's not free on the web so y'all probably missed it etc etc...). But the interesting question is why is MS recording a loss in Australia at a time when global profits were up 24 percent last quarter. Two possibilities I can see: creative accounting to minimise tax in Australia, or something's gone wrong on the sales front. They continue to keep hiring, so I'm leaning in favour of the former.
Posted by: Mark Jones | Monday, November 14, 2005 at 07:13 PM
Ha! No wonder I couldn't find the source material! I've heard from my friends still there that local employees were told it was a BUMPER year last year, they blew away their sales goals... and then they promptly cut employee benefits to shreds! So I think your first guess might be on the mark as well. So much for being the good corporate citizen. They used to be quite proud of that locally.
Posted by: Cameron Reilly | Monday, November 14, 2005 at 08:08 PM
Revenue = $1B
Cost (say) = 1000 people x $300K (including infrastructure, salaries, marketing, etc) = $300M
Where is the $700M profit???
Posted by: Jack | Tuesday, November 15, 2005 at 10:44 AM
Well, "Jack", don't forget the coupla million bucks for Vamos' salary package. I remember seeing that estimated at about $2 mill pa when he joined. All speculation though and still leaves $698 million missing from the coffers. Hopefully my mate Chris Vidotto will get some of that added to his BizTalk POC budget for this year! And hopefully Frank Arrigo will get a chunk of it to continue his awesome evangelism team.
Posted by: Cameron Reilly | Tuesday, November 15, 2005 at 11:41 AM
Forget Biztalk dude, get on the BUS!
Molly
http://www.mollyzine.com
Posted by: Phillip Molly Malone | Tuesday, November 15, 2005 at 02:00 PM
Posted by: RENO8888 | Sunday, January 14, 2007 at 07:16 AM