Microsoft’s First Annual Sales Decline In History, Raises Some Concerns

Are we seeing the decline of Microsoft already? Today Microsoft announced for the first time in their history, profits have declined for the entire fiscal year. This was something many forecasters had seen coming, as Microsoft kept seeing a steady decline of 3.2 percent per year.

Fourth quarter profits fell 29% to around $3 billion, while sales dropped 17% to around $13 billion. Much of the problem was the declining PC sales due to the recession along with legal and severance claims from laid off employees. If Windows 7 doesn’t become a hit with consumers, Microsoft will continue to see a decline in PC sales.

One of the factors to keep in mind for the upcoming fiscal year is what Google does with the Google Chrome operating system. If Chrome becomes a hit with users on netbooks and small notebooks, it could undercut Windows 7 sales. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens at the same time next year. Hopefully by then, for Microsoft’s sake, Windows 7 takes off and we can all forget Windows Vista even existed.

(Via Engadget)