Steve Ballmer: Microsoft is the most profitable company of the last ten years

This week Microsoft held a meeting with financial analysts to discuss the present and future of the company. In full internal reorganization and with the markets awaiting the news of who will replace Steve Ballmer, the current CEO of the company has taken the opportunity to chest his years as Microsoft's top manager and express some regret for not having seen the irruption coming in time of mobile in the industry.

After the announcement of his upcoming retirement within a maximum period of 12 months, Steve Ballmer once again saw how his time as CEO of Microsoft was widely criticized by the media and the public, and even by the markets, which They responded positively to the announcement of his departure.It was before the latter, in a conference broadcast live on the web, that Ballmer wanted to restore something of his legacy with data that speak highly of his management as CEO

Microsoft has won more than anyone else

To begin with, Ballmer recalled that Microsoft is the technology company that has accumulated the most profits over the last ten years, above other giants such as Amazon, Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM or Salesforce. In the whole of the past decade, those of Redmond have obtained profits worth 220 billion dollars, 45 billion more than the second of the other six and well above the rest. Except for Apple in the last five years, Microsoft has consistently made more profit than any other company.

The selection of the other companies in the presentation is not random.Ballmer intended to demonstrate how Microsoft had been able to face, and even beat, both those more oriented to the business market (such as Oracle, IBM or Salesforce) and others focused on consumers (Amazon, Google or Apple). That is how it seems that it has been and not only in benefits. Those of Redmond also have been those who have distributed the most dividends among their shareholders during these years by far.

Strong in companies, solvent in the rest

Where do all those revenues and profits come from? Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft, explained it with the following slide in which you can see how, in the last fiscal year, 55% of the company's revenues come from its businesses for companiesThe rest is divided between 20% from businesses oriented to the consumer market, 19% from OEMs, and 6% from small and medium-sized companies.

By divisions, Windows and Office continue to be the strongholds of the company accumulating 25% and 32% of revenues But the The rest continues to grow in importance, with the servers and tools division already accounting for 26%, entertainment 13% and its Bing search engine and other associated services 4% of Microsoft's revenues. Geographically, the United States and Canada are the major business points for Microsoft since together they accumulate 44% of the business volume, leaving the remaining 56% to be distributed among the rest of the countries.

The lament of the mobile

But in addition to trying to defend his legacy with numbers, Ballmer also had time to admit regret for not focusing on the mobile market sooner , assuring that this is the missed opportunity he most regrets:

Ballmer came to candidly acknowledge that Microsoft still has almost no presence in the market for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Even so, he tried to send an optimistic message by assuring that all the growth margin that lies ahead is still a great opportunity. That is why they have bought Nokia's device division and that is why they intend to continue devoting resources to Windows Phone and Windows RT.

Ballmer has months left in the Microsoft leadership, so it will be the task of the next CEO to face that necessary growth in the mobile market , while maintaining the company's unique position in the business sector. There has been no new information regarding who will be responsible for this task and we will have to continue waiting to find out who is chosen to lead the next ten years of Microsoft.

Via | Neowin | Tech Crunch | The Verge