Metropolis Opinion

Welcome to the Reuters Before the Bell news mail.

Wachovia has apparently dashed any hope that today’s batch of earnings releases can help Wall Street forget yesterday’s disappointing outlooks from Apple, Texas Instruments and American Express.

Instead, Wachovia’s news of a big loss, job cuts and a much lower dividend has underscored those pervasive worries about the financial sector, and stock futures are pointing down.

Strong results from Caterpillar are failing to disperse the bad vibes.

The dollar is mired near record lows against the euro, while U.S. Treasuries are higher.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is speaking on markets and the economy, while Philly Fed President Charles Plosser will discuss the economic outlook.

On the data front, look for housing figures and the Richmond Fed’s manufacturing and services indexes.

Oil prices are holding steady. Tropical Storm Dolly doesn’t look like much of a threat to U.S. production, and experts say it’s too early to say whether last week’s record slide is over.

There might be more news about Roche’s offer to buy the remaining stake of Genentech, since the two companies are meeting today.

Meanwhile, Brocade has sewn up a deal to buy data equipment maker Foundry Networks for about $3 billion.

Until tomorrow,

Lisa Von Ahn
News Mail Editor

Welcome to the Reuters Before the Bell news mail.

The government’s plans to stabilize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could only temporarily distract Wall Street from its longstanding jitters about the financial sector. Stock futures are pointing down as investors fret over IndyMac’s collapse last week and worry about the future of other banks.

With that sort of backdrop, the appearances of Fed chief Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and SEC Chairman Christopher Cox before the Senate Banking Committee should be interesting, to say the least.

The dollar has hit a record low against the euro and is down against an index of major currencies. Gold and U.S. Treasuries, on the other hand, are doing pretty well as some of the favored destinations in the flight to safety.

Oil prices are higher even as some production has started up again in Nigeria, with support coming from the weakening dollar, tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, and a gathering storm in the Atlantic.

The data deluge has resumed, with retail sales, the producer price index, business inventories and the New York Fed’s Empire State Manufacturing survey on tap today.

General Motors is making another major restructuring announcement.

And now back to the financial sector. The Wall Street Journal says the Securities and Exchange Commission is subpoenaing more than 50 hedge fund advisers in an investigation of whether individuals spread false rumors to manipulate shares of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.

Meanwhile, the New York Post says Lehman is exploring ways to go private.

Until tomorrow,

Lisa Von Ahn

News Mail Editor

Part Three Online Services Business and Entertainment and Devices Division

The Online Services Business (OSB) provides personal communications services, such as e-mail and instant messaging and online information offerings, such as Live Search and MSN portals and channels worldwide. OSB also provides a range of online services, such as MSN Internet Access, MSN Premium Web Services and OneCare. OSB manages many of its own properties, including home page, health, auto and shopping. In addition, OSB creates alliances with third parties, such as CareerBuilder.com, Expedia.com, Foxsports.com, Match.com, and MSNBC.com. OSB generates revenue primarily from online advertising, subscriptions and transactions of online paid services, as well as MSN narrowband Internet access subscriptions.

During fiscal 2007, the Company launched new online initiatives, including Windows Live Search and Live.com in 54 international markets, Live Local Search in the United States and United Kingdom, beta versions of MSN Soapbox (expansion of the MSN Video experience), Virtual Earth 3D, Windows Live Hotmail and others. The Company’s products in OSB segment includes MSN Search, MapPoint, MSN Internet Access, MSN Premium Web Services (consisting of MSN Internet Software Subscription, MSN Hotmail Plus, MSN Bill Pay, and MSN Radio Plus), Windows Live, and MSN Mobile Services.

In this segment, the Company competes with AOL, Google, Yahoo! and Earthlink.

Microsoft Business Division

Microsoft Business Division (MBD) offerings consist of the Microsoft Office system and Microsoft Dynamics business solutions. Microsoft Dynamics products provide business solutions for financial management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and analytics applications for small and mid-size businesses, large organizations and divisions of global enterprises. Approximately 75% of MBD revenue is generated from sales to businesses. Approximately 25% of MBD revenue is derived from sales to consumers. The products in MBD includes Microsoft Office, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, Microsoft Office Communication Server, Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft Tellme Service, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System, Microsoft Partner Program and Microsoft Office Accounting.

In this segment, the Company competes with Apple, Corel, Google, IBM, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, AjaxWrite, gOffice, iNetOffice, SimDesk, ThinkFree and wikiCalc.

Entertainment and Devices Division Full Article »

Part Two Client, Services and Tools

The Client segment has overall responsibility for the technical architecture, engineering and product delivery of the Company’s Windows product family, and is also responsible for its relationships with PC manufacturers, including multinational and regional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2007 (fiscal 2007), the Company released Windows Vista, the Windows operating system. The Company’s products in the Client segment includes Windows Vista, including Home, Home Premium, Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise Starter Edition; Windows XP Professional and Home; Media Center Edition; Tablet PC Edition, and other standard Windows operating systems.

In the Client segment, the Company competes with Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Mozilla and Sun Microsystems.

Server and Tools

Server and Tools develops and markets software server products, services and solutions. Windows Server products are integrated server infrastructure and middleware software designed to support software applications and tools built on the Windows Server operating system. Windows Server products include the server platform, database, storage, management and operations, service-oriented architecture platform and security software. The segment also builds standalone and software development lifecycle tools for software architects, developers, testers and project managers. Server products can be run on premise or in a hosting environment.

The Company offers a range of consulting services and provides product support services and customer industry solutions. Server and Tools segment also provides training and certification to developers and information technology professionals about its Server and Client platform products. Server and Tools also includes the enterprise partner group, which is responsible for sales, partner management, and partner programs for medium and large organizations, and the public sector sales and marketing organization. The Company’s products in the Server and Tools segment includes Windows Server operating system, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Enterprise Services, product support services, Visual Studio, System Center products, Forefront Security products, Biz Talk Server, Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and TechNet.

In the Server and Tools segment, the Company competes with Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Novell, Red Hat, VMWare, Computer Associates, Oracle, BMC, McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro, Adobe, BEA Systems and Borland.

Taken from the Source: Reuters Company Profile

Part One, Company Overview

Microsoft Corporation, incorporated in 1981, develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a range of software products for computing devices. The Company’s software products include operating systems for servers, personal computers (PCs) and intelligent devices, server applications for distributed computing environments, information worker productivity applications, business solution applications, high-performance computing applications and software development tools. It provides consulting and product support services, and trains and certifies computer system integrators and developers. Microsoft Corporation sells the Xbox 360 video game console and games, the Zune digital music and entertainment device, PC games, and peripherals. Online offerings and information are delivered through its Windows Live, Office Live, and MSN portals and channels. The Company enables the delivery of online advertising through its adCenter platform. The Company has five segments: Client, Server and Tools, the Online Services Business, the Microsoft Business Division, and the Entertainment and Devices Division.

In June 2008, the Company announced the acquisition of Navic Networks, a provider of television advertising solutions. Navic will join Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group. In April 2008, the Company completed the acquisition of Danger, Inc. and Fast Search & Transfer ASA. In December 2007, the Company acquired Multimap, a provider of online mapping services. Multimap will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, as part of the Virtual Earth and Search teams in the Online Services Business. In August 2007, the Company acquired aQuantive Inc. In May 2007, it completed the acquisition of Tellme Networks Inc., a provider of voice services, including nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service and voice-enabled mobile search. In October 2006, it acquired Colloquis Inc., a provider of conversational online business solutions that feature natural language processing technology. In October 2007, the Company announced that it has launched Microsoft Health Vault, software and services platform.

Taken from the Source: Reuters, Company Profile

As largest software providers, Microsoft still move forward to enter online advertising and search engine. Yahoo rejected previously bid, so as we read today on reuters.com, Microsoft and Icahn make new bid and new proposal for Yahoo, include $9 billion for cash, $2.3 billion for annual revenue share for five years.

Previously Yahoo rejected a $47.5 billion takeover offer by Microsoft, and earlier this week questioned whether the software maker was ever serious about a full-scale merger. However, Yahoo remains open to discussing any proposal from Microsoft, the paper said.

To prepare new proposal, Microsoft looks new partner (ally) in biding Yahoo because of some reasons, mainly for easy funding. But Microsoft wanted an exclusive, 10-year search ad partnership with Yahoo and was willing to guarantee revenue for only three of those 10 years, a source told Reuters at that time.

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