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Consumer Electronics

A Microsoft (MSFT) Christmas

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Christmas may come early to Microsoft (MSFT) investors.

Just a year ago, it was hard to imagine that the world’s largest software company would ever have an earnings engine beyond its core Windows OS and Office products. They have been the huge majority of revenue and 100% of operating profit since the company began. And, they have offset losses in the company’s video game and online divisions.

Improved sales in PCs over the last quarter may help the company’s core software businesses bring in an impressive quarter, but going into the last two months of the year, the tremendous success of the company’s new video game "Halo 3" and the lift that it is giving to Xbox 360 sales, could actually turn the device business into a profit-maker for the company. Last year, the division lost $1.9 billion.

Green ink in that division along with strong Vista sales could actually turn Microsoft into a growth stock story again.

Ho, Ho, Ho.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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