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Microsoft saw a jump in profits from its server and tools business last quarter, while its desktop Windows and Office business posted slight declines in profits from a year earlier, according to documents filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company released individual segment sales when it reported earnings last month but, until Thursday, had not reported how much money each of its seven business units made or lost.
In October, Microsoft reported earnings of $2.6 billion on $8.2 billion in revenue, saying an improvement in PC sales helped the company exceed its earlier forecasts. However, the company also saw a drop in so-called unearned revenue--that is, money taken in for long-term contracts, as customers expressed reticence over security issues.
In Thursday's breakdown, Microsoft said that, for the three months ended Sept. 30, its client business, which is made up of the desktop Windows business, earned $2.26 billion in profits on revenue of $2.81 billion. That compares with a $2.27 billion profit in the same quarter a year ago, on roughly similar revenue of $2.81 billion.
The server and tools unit had a profit of $370 million, up from $297 million a year earlier, as sales grew to $1.87 billion from $1.63 billion a year ago. The information worker segment, which includes the Office business, posted a slight drop in profits, to $1.59 billion from $1.66 billion, despite the fact that sales inched up to $2.29 billion from $2.27 billion a year ago.
The MSN unit turned its first profit, earning $58 million, reversing a $147 million loss in the year-ago quarter. The mobile and embedded device unit roughly halved its loss--to $32 million from $65 million a year ago, while the home and entertainment unit saw its loss widen to $273 million from $245 million a year ago.
The Microsoft Business Solutions unit trimmed its quarterly loss to $79 million, compared with a $94 million loss in the year-ago quarter. The company also had $751 million in losses from corporate and other items, an increase from the $652 million loss posted a year earlier.
Microsoft also reiterated in the filing that it plans to take a charge in its fiscal second quarter as it completes a program in which employees can sell their underwater stock options--that is, options whose exercise price is greater than the level at which Microsoft shares are currently trading--to JP Morgan. Microsoft said it is not currently able to estimate the charge, which relates to the cost of unvested options that are transferred.
The company said it ended the quarter with $51.62 billion in cash and short-term investments, up from $49.05 billion as of June 30.
IDEA schools serve low-income Hispanic students in Texas — and graduate all of them.
It was only the second day of school, but they were already learning the rigors of IDEA Public Schools, a Texas nonprofit that targets low-income, Hispanic communities — and delivers academic results.
Its network of schools — now 79 and growing fast — regularly outperforms Texas public schools on standardized test scores in every subject matter and at every grade level. It boasts a 100 percent graduation rate and widely broadcasts the fact that every one of its graduates gets accepted to college.
Now, building on that success, the charter network — founded 18 years ago in a south Texas border town — is advertising aggressive plans to multiply. Those plans include expanding to 173 pre-K, elementary, middle and high schools from Texas to Louisiana and Florida by 2022 — a goal of serving 100,000 students compared to 45,504 today.
And it has its eyes on New Mexico.
No major, national charter management organization operates in New Mexico. But though state law prohibits for-profit companies from running charter schools, it does not preclude a large nonprofit from entering the market, according to Lisa Grover, senior director for state advocacy in New Mexico for the Washington, D.C.-based National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
IDEA has already hired away one of New Mexico’s top-performing educators. As principal of Anthony Elementary in the Gadsden Independent School District, Linda Perez raised test scores and helped make the school a Blue Ribbon winner in one of the poorest parts of the state.
She now serves as a “principal in residence” at IDEA Edgemere, a training program that will prepare her to lead one of the network’s future new schools in El Paso next year. Her educational philosophy — marked by a “no excuses” approach and early focus on college education — apparently meshed well with the charter mantra.
“Every child can and will succeed if given the opportunity,” IDEA proclaims on its website, a motto that serves as a powerful contrast to New Mexico’s explicit lack of expectations for at-risk students. In opening statements last year in a court case it recently lost, the Public Education Department laid bare its belief that some kids just can’t learn.
The IDEA model provides a highly structured academic environment, full of supports to ensure that every student not only graduates but also is admitted to college. Those supports include extended-day programs to help kids with homework, Saturday school, “rigorous pre-AP instruction” for middle schoolers, “AP for all” high schoolers, as well as academic and college counseling.
To receive a diploma, students must apply and be accepted to a four-year college, according to the student handbook. It is a rule written into the IDEA Public Schools’ charter in Texas. To help get them there, IDEA sends its students all over the country to visit colleges and universities. Last year, the network spent $3.9 million toward that goal.
Not every student makes it that far. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) doesn’t report attrition rates for charter networks, but IDEA spokesman Marco Carbajal said the network’s student “retention goal” is 90 percent. That could mean that as many as 10 percent of students do not return year over year.
The network — founded in Donna, Texas, by Teach For America alumni Tom Torkelson and JoAnn Gama — has many boosters, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has supported it with multiple grants. It has also won multimillion-dollar Race to the Top grants, a competitive federal program to “help trail-blaze effective reforms and provide examples for states and local education agencies,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.
But it has also faced its share of criticism, including claims that its policies artificially inflate metrics and fail to account for the potential “weeding out” effect of student attrition. The TEA gives the network a “B” overall in its school grading system, which weighs student performance on standardized tests, college readiness and graduation rate.
“A typical charter management organization has policies in place that allow them to make claims, like ‘100 percent of our kids apply for college,’” said David Knight, associate director for the Center for Education Research and Policy Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso.
The role of student attrition in charter school graduation rates is a controversial issue. Researchers have asked, but not yet resolved, a fundamental question: Are certain groups of kids prone to leave certain charters?
Another criticism has to do with the long-lasting academic gains behind such programs. IDEA is working to address to what extent those gains fizzle when its students move on to college.
IDEA graduates who attend Texas colleges and universities don't perform as well as their public school peers, according to 2017 data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. That year, some 37 percent of the IDEA students who attended a Texas college ended up earning a 2.0 or less their freshman year — anywhere from a “C” average to a failing grade — compared to a quarter of high school graduates generally.
Cantu said IDEA Public Schools has acknowledged the issue and is analyzing its students’ performance in college. While hand-holding ensures high school success, it may backfire in the college environment where kids need to make their own way.
Like many of his students who come from poverty, Cantu grew up in a family of migrant farm workers in the Rio Grande Valley. He has worn many hats in the IDEA network, including as principal of a school in his hometown of Las Milpas, a former colonia on the Texas-Mexico border.
The IDEA network currently serves a student population that is 93 percent Hispanic and 87 percent economically disadvantaged, according to the TEA. More than a third of its students are English-language learners.
Between 2014 and 2016, the latest year for which data is available, the charter’s students topped Texas students generally on the state’s standardized test scores in nearly every subject matter and grade level. In that same period, 100 percent of IDEA’s high school students graduated on time, according to TEA.
IDEA has been graduating seniors since 2007 and has matriculated more than 4,000 students since that time. It’s a drop in the bucket in Texas, which graduates more than 300,000 students annually.
The program has occasionally faced strong local opposition as it has moved into new areas.
Where IDEA Edgemere opened on the far east side of El Paso, new single-family houses are rising in the desert by the hundreds. The local Socorro Independent School District issued a $448.5 million bond in 2017 to accommodate that growth, and pay for new schools and renovations for its 46,300 students.
When the district discovered IDEA’s plans, its administrators fought back hard.
Superintendent Jose Espinoza organized 3,000 teachers and volunteers to go door-to-door and flaunt the district’s own successes and programs. They knocked on some 10,000 doors, according to a SISD spokesman, touting the public schools’ graduation rate of 91.5 percent; an extended school day for kids struggling with academics; art, music and sports; and a year-round school schedule.
The effort took a toll on IDEA’s recruitment plans. The charter, which enrolls its students through a lottery, had fielded roughly 3,000 applications in El Paso but by the first week of school had missed its enrollment target of 1,068 by more than 100 children.
“Socorro has done a really good job countering what we’ve done,” Cantu said, even as he shrugged off the impact.
IDEA Public Schools spends $9,883 per student, according to the TEA, about $380 more than Texas public school districts on average. Teacher pay at IDEA schools starts at $47,500 and caps out at $67,000. By comparison, Texas public school teacher salaries start at $28,000 and top out at $45,510.
With school about to let out at IDEA Edgemere, parents waited with engines running in 100-degree heat. Ariel Navarro, driving a bright blue pickup, said she was thrilled to enroll her 5-year-old son, Junior, at an IDEA school. She comes from south Texas and knew IDEA’s reputation.
Searchlight New Mexico is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to investigative journalism. Read more stories on Raising New Mexico at projects.searchlightnm.com/. Help Searchlight New Mexico continue to report the news that matters to you. Contribute at http://searchlightnm.com/support-investigative-reporting/.
Reporter Lauren Villagran can be reached at lauren@searchlightnm.com.
One of the biggest stories of last year came in May when it was reported that Zack Snyder was stepping away from Justice League to tend to personal matters, and Joss Whedon would take over directing duties. Snyder’s daughter had committed suicide, and it was an awful situation that understandably would lead anyone to take a break from work and focus on their family. While that seemed to be the official story since May—Snyder left Justice League because of a personal matter—it turns out that Zack Snyder may have actually been fired from Justice League.
I’d heard similar things from separate sources over the last year as well. I also heard that Snyder’s rough-cut of the movie was “unwatchable” (a word that jumped out at me because it’s rare you hear two separate sources use the exact same adjective). Of course, even if that’s true, there’s obviously more to the story since rough cuts can be fixed up with reshoots, rewrites, etc.
So why didn’t anyone report this until now? Because it’s also true that Snyder was dealing with a personal matter. It may not have been the reason he left Justice League, but no one wanted to pile on to a guy who had just lost a child. While the truth matters, the exact reason for Snyder’s departure wasn’t vital information because the outcome was still the same—he was off Justice League and Joss Whedon was brought on board.
It’s a sad story all around, and I hope that Snyder, when he’s ready, will give his side of what happened during his time overseeing the DCEU. I’m sure we’d all like to hear his perspective.
6:15 AM PT -- HGTV has now been announced as the winning bidder for the iconic Hollywood home. The company claims it intends to return it to its "1970s glory."
Lance Bass has someone who is squarely siding with him in the mess over the sale of the 'Brady Bunch' house ... that someone is his real estate broker, who says his client was shamelessly defrauded.
Lance's real estate broker tells TMZ, there was no misunderstanding ... the realtor for the seller of the 'Brady Bunch' house made it crystal clear ... Lance was the highest bidder and the house was his.
The broker says before Lance submitted his bid, which was just under $3 million, the seller's realtor was unambiguous ... the cutoff for submitting offers was last Thursday at 3 PM and they would take NO OTHER OFFERS after that. The highest bidder would get the house. Period.
Lance was indeed the highest bidder, and his broker tells us the seller's realtor even doubled down and said the house was Lance's. What's more, Lance's broker says the seller's realtor even sent paperwork to him to finalize the deal.
Lance's broker says the seller's realtor told him this was a solid "gentleman's agreement," with paperwork to follow, which it did.
As we reported, Lance claims the seller's realtor had a plan all along ... that a studio would come in after the bidding war and outbid everyone -- which is exactly what happened. Lance and his broker claim the seller's realtor lied to them and the other bidders and it was a shameless ploy to make a buck.
This article was published 1/7/2013 (2119 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The 24th edition of Dauphin's Countryfest began with some concern about incessant rain and mud, but it wasn't long before thoughts turned to the music and the biggest party of the summer.
Fourteen-thousand music fans enjoyed some of the biggest names in the music business, not to mention some of the cooler acts around.
Both Thursday and Friday were plagued by intermittent wet stuff.
On Friday, after Emerson Drive played their 7 p.m. set, the skies really opened up, postponing Kip Moore's performance by 10 minutes. But the sea of yellow rain gear stayed put for songs such as Hey Pretty Girl, Something 'Bout a Truck and Beer Money (which concertgoers seemed to be spending a lot of all weekend).
Carrie Underwood's outstanding, no-frills set was a definite Countryfest highlight Sunday.
The rain eventually subsided before returning headliner Dierks Bentley told the crowd, "I know who you are. I've been here before."
He turned in a solid performance, motivating the crowd with ballads such as Home and kickers such as What Was I Thinking.
Countryfest isn't just a big deal in Manitoba. It's a hit in the country music industry as well.
After their Dauphin debut on Saturday night, Countryfest publicist RoseAnna Schick said members of Florida Georgia Line told festival manager Rob Waloschuk Dauphin is among their top three shows ever. Schick added husband/wife duo Thompson Square tweeted Countryfest "rocked their world" and ranked it among their "top five crowds."
Saturday's headliner, Luke Bryan, totally blew the crowd away with a hit-filled set and a killer band. He told the crowd, "I ain't never seen a crowd this crazy in my life."
Perhaps that was the inspiration for spraying the audience with beer prior to saying his final good night. Another song might have been more welcome but the crowd seemed to lap up everything the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year dished out.
After Bryan's set, festival-goers got a chance to rock out with the Trews, who played an energetic and solid set — or got their "yee-haw on" (yes, that's a phrase now).
The raucous crowd takes in Countryfest.
Although the annual event is called Countryfest, there were a few rockers both old and new on the bill — the Odds, Econoline Crush and Yukon Blonde joined the Trews, performing for a boisterous crowd at midnight Saturday.
Other fans late Saturday chose to enjoy the truly engaging Corb Lund, who spoke about Countryfest being one of his all-time favourite places to play.
Countryfest also was a chance to check out a wealth of Manitoba talent, including Sweet Alibi, the JD Edwards Band, Ridley Bent, the F-Holes, Bad Country, Crook, Del Barber, Don Amero, Grant Davidson, Jason Kirkness, Kimberley Dawn, Sweet Alibi, the Crooked Brothers and even DJ Co-op & Hunnicut, who kept the dance-hungry crowd grooving each night from 1:30 a.m. to 2 a.m.
Sunday began with the traditional mainstage gospel show but what was unusual was the entertainment. First up was Crewcifyed 8:38, a band that included four members of the stage crew who have worked Countryfest for a decade or more. They were followed by former CFRY/NCI announcer Kevin Mills, who now lives in Virginia Beach, Va.
The rest of the afternoon showcased some of the finest roots and alt-country anywhere, with Lund, Manitoban Ridley Bent and Texas singer Hayes Carll. It was a lineup as imaginative as Thursday night's, which featured Justin Townes Earle, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real and Shooter Jennings.
Sunday night began with a solid set from Alberta-based brother trio High Valley, who incorporated some pop covers alongside their positive country set and laughed about being referred to as a "boy band" by some.
B.C. native Dean Brody got the Canadian Girls (and guys) wound up before headliner Carrie Underwood gave a stellar performance. She played her many hits without resorting to a big, flashy stage show or being buoyed by dancers as some other performers do.
Shell Chemical Appalachia and Eye-bot Aerial Solutions were recognised by Bentley Systems with the Special Recognition Award for Continuous Surveying in Construction at Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure Conference, held in London this week.
Shell Chemical Appalachia is constructing a multi-billion dollar, world-scale ethane cracking plant to create polyethylene in the western Pennsylvania region. To help monitor and manage construction of the facility, the organisation used unmanned aerial vehicles to capture real-time, accurate data of the entire site and the surrounding areas, close to 450 acres total, and processed the data into a high-resolution orthophoto and 3D reality mesh model.
The 3D data provided a strategic perspective of the existing site conditions and served as a single source of truth for both future and retrospective progress analysis, optimising collaboration and decision making between the client and the EPC contractors, with over 500 multidiscipline end users across 10 companies.
On a weekly basis, the project team captured more than 8,000 images and processed the images as 2D and 3D deliverables within the required 72-hour window using Bentley’s ContextCapture software. The high-speed processing engines of ContextCapture produced a dimensionally accurate 3D reality mesh, enabling the identification and resolution of potential construction problems before they impact operations on site. The 3D reality mesh models are expected to facilitate inventory control and improve emergency response management.
It is a benchmark achieved in marketing management and marketing education of Sri Lanka. Dilmah and Odel are included as successful marketing stories from Sri Lanka in 13th Edition of Principles of Marketing (A South Asian Perspective) by Philip Kotler. Kotler regarded as the Guru of marketing, is the Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management in the United States. His books such as Marketing Management and Principles of Marketing are the most widely used text books in marketing management courses at undergraduate and postgraduate programs all over the world.
The 13th Edition of Principles of Marketing (A South Asian Perspective) is co-authored by Prof. Gary Amstrong of University of North Carolina, Prof. Prafulla Y. Agnihotri of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and Prof. Ehsan ul Haque of Lahore University of Management Sciences. The text book will be the main reference for most of MBA and undergraduate programs in business schools and Universities in South Asia and also for the students from the other parts of the world who will be studying the courses relevant to marketing in South Asia. It is a first time ever that two Sri Lankan companies are featured in the book. Dilmah and Odel of Sri Lanka along with success marketing stories from India and Pakistan are featured with typical global success companies such as P&G, GE, Apple and Toyota. This will not only improve the image of two brands but also enhance the overall reputation of marketing management of Sri Lankan companies in the global context.
Chaminda Hettiarachchi, a lecturer and a researcher of South Asian management studies based in Sri Lanka is the contributor of the Sri Lankan case studies in the book. Chaminda remarked, "I am glad to have collaborated with Kotler and the co-authors to publish Sri Lankan marketing success for the book. I also like to thank the management of Odel and Dilmah for sharing their stories. This is not only an achievement for Odel and Dilmah along, the entire country can be glad of our marketing management success in the global arena. We have considered several cases from Sri Lanka for the book however; only above two companies could make it along with other successful stores from India and Pakistan. I am looking to study about some more business cases for next edition".
As long as public broadcasters take government cash, they’ll censor themselves. They should get off the teat. I’ll write the first check.
Is a small amount government funding worth the political pressure that President Trump can put on public broadcasting?
Cut the cord, public broadcasting, and be free.
I say this as a fan of public broadcasting. We need independent media now more than ever, and state-funded media are not independent. Public broadcasters are less critical of the government than either they could or should be. Yes, comparatively speaking public broadcasting receives relatively little money from the government. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) gets about $450 million per year, which is essentially a rounding error in the federal budget, and NPR has consistently maintained that, on average, “less than 1%” of its “operating budget comes in the form of grants from CPB and federal agencies and departments.” But the absolute numbers are inconsequential. Public broadcasting fights tooth and nail to keep the meager scraps of public money it gets, demonstrating that the funding, however small, is significant enough to affect their behavior.
In fact, privately funded, independent, non-commercial television networks predate public broadcasting, and our modern public broadcasting system was partially created to supplant them. National Educational Television—created in 1952 with the Ford Foundation providing the lion’s share of funding—was able to air hard-hitting, if not subversive, documentaries such as Who Invited US?, which was critical of U.S. foreign policy, and the British documentary Inside North Vietnam, which contradicted the government’s claims that the military hadn’t attacked civilian targets.
Even without government money, Inside North Vietnam got 33 members of Congress to sign a letter of protest. With government money, it is unlikely it would have ever been aired.
NET understood that government money always came with strings. A mid-60’s NET pamphlet explained how there would be a “furor” in Congress if a publicly funded entity presented a “candid documentary on segregation, or socialized medicine, or birth control,” which is why NET eschewed government funding. When the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created in 1967, President Johnson, and later President Nixon, hoped that a controlled CPB could put NET out of business.
For any media- and image-obsessed president who is willing to push his power to the limit, public broadcasting presents an easy target. Nixon used budgetary pressures and personnel choices to push CPB toward more “administration friendly” messaging.
A 1969 memo outlined the administration’s goals: creating a new “public” media network to compete with more independent sources such as NET. That network could be controlled because the White House would “have a hand in picking the head of such a major new organization if it were funded by the Corporation [CPB].” That major new organization became PBS. After PBS began broadcasting, NET was finished as a separate network. Some of its programs, such as NET Journal, and facilities (New York’s WNET) were picked up and maintained by PBS.
NET’s “anti-Administration” programming eventually pushed the Nixon White House to try to supplant any private funding with pure public funding, as well as prohibiting the CPB from accepting outside funding. Only then could the politics of public broadcasting be completely under their control.
As a result of these pressures, as well as 40 years of Republicans complaining and threatening defunding, the CPB began to consciously stay out of the White House’s and Congress’s political crosshairs, creating a gun-shy culture that, I would argue, still exists today. If President Trump can’t get rid of the CPB’s funding, it seems likely that he’ll “pull a Nixon” and harm the organization’s independence even more.
If public broadcasting officials want to regain the independence that NET once enjoyed, I have a suggestion: Announce that you will be giving up government funding in an effort to free yourself from political pressure, create a non-commercial, non-profit media entity that runs entirely on donations, and then hold the biggest fundraiser you’ve ever had.
I will gladly write the first check.
If you haven't figured out your Easter menu yet, hop to it.
There's still time to make reservations, place to-go orders and search the web for perfect recipes.
According to the National Retail Federation’s annual Easter survey, holiday spending is expected to total $18.2 billion this year close to last year’s record high of $18.4 billion with the average consumer spending $150.
Shoppers are expected to spend $5.7 billion on food, $3.2 billion on clothes, $2.9 billion on gifts, $2.6 billion on candy, $1.3 billion on flowers, $1.1 billion on decorations and $780 billion on greeting cards, the survey showed.
The retail group's survey also showed 60 percent of consumers will visit family and friends, 58 percent will cook a holiday meal and 17 percent will go to a restaurant.
In another survey, popular cashback website, TopCashback.com, found 63 percent of Americans will purchase Easter basket and egg hunt items at Walmart, 40 percent at the local dollar store and 39 percent at Target.