Brier Dudley's Blog

Brier Dudley offers a critical look at technology and business issues affecting the Northwest.

July 24, 2008 3:26 PM

Microsoft CFO to Wall Street: What gives? And forget about a Yahoo deal

If Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and CFO Chris Liddell weren't already bald, they would be from scratching their heads, trying to figure out why their stock is doing so poorly. Especially given the company's recent performance, including 12 percent average growth in Microsoft's core businesses since 2005.

Not to mention Microsoft's 18 percent growth over the last fiscal year.

"Those are fabulous numbers. Those are fabulous numbers for any company of any size,'' Liddell said to analysts.

And you may as well forget about Yahoo, he said, basically. Chances of a deal are now "neglible."

"A full acquisition, certainly in the time frame and sort of economics that we'd previous thought, essentially makes no sense."

Never say never, but a search deal seems unlikely as well.

Pay attention instead to numbers like these, Liddell seemed to be saying, in a speech highlighting slides like this one:

Digg | Newsvine

Submit a comment

Posted by Bob

9:47 PM, Jul 24, 2008

I think what gives is that for at least five years they were content to ignore the stock completely, even stating on several occasions that it wasn't a focus or priority. Now MSFT stock is damaged goods and investors aren't flocking back just because Ballmer/Liddell finally manage to mention the stock without being asked.

Posted by Kevin

9:57 PM, Jul 24, 2008

Don't know where Bob gets his info, but I think a historical look will show that Msft has outperformed over the last several years. And I'd love to see the quotes where they said the stock wasn't a priority.

Posted by Bob

7:36 AM, Jul 25, 2008

MSFT has underperformed versus most large-cap techs and the NAS over 1,2,3,4,5 and 10 years. Versus the S&P it's 3, 5, and 10 years, with the 1 year being a tie and the 2 year a slight beat.

Posted by Judy

7:38 AM, Jul 25, 2008

Hey Kevin,

Aren't you going to be at juniper now? May be you should worry about JNPR more than MSFT.

Posted by Wallstreet Morons

5:18 PM, Jul 25, 2008

Wallstreet are ran by stupid MORONS. The same problem exists for Intel.