Microsoft announced much better than expected results–led by strong Windows and Xbox demand and cost discipline.
Here are Microsoft’s slides on the financial results, which you can enjoy all weekend long (if you have no life, it goes without saying).
While Microsoft COO Kevin Turner did a kind of modified cheerleading act at Microsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting, Entertainment and Devices President Robbie Bach played the teenage boy and Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie the voice from the future.
It included Bach playing ball with Microsoft’s new motion-sensing, controllerless Project Natal and Mundie introducing a very creepy digital assistant with more than a passing resemblance to HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Last night, well-known Internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen appeared on the “Charlie Rose” interview show, talking about the digital sector and unveiling the news that he is creating a new venture fund.
I had heard rumblings about Andreessen’s funding efforts earlier this week, with sources I talked to jokingly nicknaming it “Project A.”
Actually, Andreessen said the new firm is called Andreessen Horowitz (zzzz), because he is doing it with longtime investing partner Ben Horowitz.
“For the first time in my life, I am crossing over into the dark side,” said Andreessen.
We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.
Here’s an interview I did with Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick about the state of the gaming business.
It’s a good week to focus on the gaming industry since Electronic Arts abandoned its hostile acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive over the weekend.
The move was–in part–in answer to Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, one the most popular multi-player games. This has made Activision one of the gaming industry’s largest companies, due to some of its well-known franchises, especially its hugely popular Guitar Hero, which debuted version IV at D6.
Lots of people were bellyaching about the lackluster nature of Bill Gates’s final performance at CES last night–long on deals and stats and short on the futuristic predictions Gates often makes.
Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski was unimpressed, as were Duncan Riley of TechCrunch and ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, for example.
But, to my mind, giving the Microsoft [...]
When Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski got word of Microsoft’s enormous repair bill for the faulty Xbox 360, he also discovered that the defect–the so-called red ring of death–may affect as many as a third or more of the video-game consoles, a fact the tech giant says will cause frustration for “some” of its customers.
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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