Linked List: April 24, 2019

Wednesday, 24 April 2019

Microsoft Reports Strong Q3 2019 Results 

Microsoft:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended March 31, 2019, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:

  • Revenue was $30.6 billion and increased 14%

  • Operating income was $10.3 billion and increased 25%

  • Net income was $8.8 billion and increased 19%

  • Diluted earnings per share was $1.14 and increased 20% […]

“Demand for our cloud offerings drove commercial cloud revenue to $9.6 billion this quarter, up 41% year-over-year,” said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft.

Azure is way up, but Office and even Windows are up too. Satya Nadella’s Microsoft is doing really well, and to me seems well-positioned for the future.

(One amusing side note: The press release was obviously written in Word and exported to HTML. Just look at the source. The items in the bullet list (which list is not an <ol> but instead a bunch of <span> elements) start with a Unicode middle dot followed by a space, then 7 consecutive non-breaking spaces. Microsoft is still Microsoft.)

NYT: ‘In Push for 2020 Election Security, Top Official Was Warned: Don’t Tell Trump’ 

Eric Schmitt, David E. Sanger, and Maggie Haberman:

Ms. Nielsen left the Department of Homeland Security early this month after a tumultuous 16-month tenure and tensions with the White House. Officials said she had become increasingly concerned about Russia’s continued activity in the United States during and after the 2018 midterm elections — ranging from its search for new techniques to divide Americans using social media, to experiments by hackers, to rerouting internet traffic and infiltrating power grids.

But in a meeting this year, Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff, made it clear that Mr. Trump still equated any public discussion of malign Russian election activity with questions about the legitimacy of his victory. According to one senior administration official, Mr. Mulvaney said it “wasn’t a great subject and should be kept below his level.”

Unsurprising, but jaw-dropping nonetheless. On the one side: hostile actions from our most dangerous foreign adversary and the integrity of our nation’s elections. On the other side: one man’s ego.