Study finance
Before the author commented on MS financials he probably should take a finance class or two. Microsoft lost money on the P&L but earned cashed from the sales of phones. This is because they have around $5 billion in goodwill on the books from the purchase of Nokia phone business. This is the amount that is beyond the value of the assets. In the USA the tax requires businesses to write this down in the from of depreciation over a 30 year period or so. If that is the case MS would have written off 166 million last year. The problem is the IRS wants MS to take the loss today so that in the future they pay taxes. MS would prefer to take it over 30 years.
Regardless of the tax implications the fact is MS actually generated positive cash flow from it's phone operations and at the author is mistaken if they believe that MS should abandon them
Biting the hand that feeds IT
