Windows XP is the only product available of the operating system market capable of rivaling Windows Vista, and Microsoft's indecision when it comes to pronounce it expired will backfire in 2008. In the coming year, Windows Vista adoption will be hurt by a Windows platform released all the way back in 2001. By 2008, Windows XP will be seven years old, and a worthy competitor to Windows Vista, according to Microsoft. The coming year will prove that Windows XP is far from expired when it comes to customer perception and that the operating system which hit the shelves on October 25 2001 is alive and kicking, and stealing Microsoft customers away from Windows Vista.
At the end of the past week, Microsoft made public record annual revenue, surpassing $50 Billion. Additionally, the Redmond company, revealed that Windows Vista and the Office 2007 System have had a major impact on the $51.12 billion revenue of the past fiscal year, and the $13.37 billion revenue of the quarter ended on June 30. "This fiscal year marked the general availability of Microsoft’s flagship products, Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Revenue growth was primarily driven by solid customer acceptance of these products," Microsoft stated.
"Surpassing $50 billion in annual sales is a testament to the innovation and value that our product groups delivered into the marketplace, as well as the outstanding execution by our field sales, marketing teams and partners to bring that value to life with our customers," said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. "In fiscal year 2008, we will continue to drive growth through new product offerings, such as Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM."
"Our results this quarter cap off an extremely strong fiscal year for the company," said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "We have healthy core businesses and are strategically investing in growth opportunities, which will build on our success and contribute to continued double-digit revenue and earnings growth in fiscal year 2008."
But in the coming fiscal year, there will be another product that will generate profit for Microsoft in the detriment of Windows Vista. The Redmond company announced that it expects strong sales from Windows XP in 2008. "We fine-tuned the Vista/XP mix for next year" Liddell said cited by PC World. "We changed it from 85 percent to 78 percent. Now, it's a lower number for Vista, but it's still a very high number overall from our perspective, so 78 percent Vista mix in terms of sales next year."
Going from an 85/15 split for Windows Vista/Windows XP sales in the 2008 fiscal year to a 78/22 split in sales, represents an illustration of the market reality that XP is selling, and selling well even in the context of Windows Vista.
At the end of the past week, Microsoft made public record annual revenue, surpassing $50 Billion. Additionally, the Redmond company, revealed that Windows Vista and the Office 2007 System have had a major impact on the $51.12 billion revenue of the past fiscal year, and the $13.37 billion revenue of the quarter ended on June 30. "This fiscal year marked the general availability of Microsoft’s flagship products, Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Revenue growth was primarily driven by solid customer acceptance of these products," Microsoft stated.
"Surpassing $50 billion in annual sales is a testament to the innovation and value that our product groups delivered into the marketplace, as well as the outstanding execution by our field sales, marketing teams and partners to bring that value to life with our customers," said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. "In fiscal year 2008, we will continue to drive growth through new product offerings, such as Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM."
"Our results this quarter cap off an extremely strong fiscal year for the company," said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "We have healthy core businesses and are strategically investing in growth opportunities, which will build on our success and contribute to continued double-digit revenue and earnings growth in fiscal year 2008."
But in the coming fiscal year, there will be another product that will generate profit for Microsoft in the detriment of Windows Vista. The Redmond company announced that it expects strong sales from Windows XP in 2008. "We fine-tuned the Vista/XP mix for next year" Liddell said cited by PC World. "We changed it from 85 percent to 78 percent. Now, it's a lower number for Vista, but it's still a very high number overall from our perspective, so 78 percent Vista mix in terms of sales next year."
Going from an 85/15 split for Windows Vista/Windows XP sales in the 2008 fiscal year to a 78/22 split in sales, represents an illustration of the market reality that XP is selling, and selling well even in the context of Windows Vista.
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How to Manage Priorities With Excel
Filed under: Microsoft Author:How to Manage Priorities With Excel
Writing your priorities on paper works if you’re able to knock them off in an afternoon. With a torrent of incoming tasks at home or work, many get carried over to the next day (or week or month). This Excel spreadsheet watches approaching deadlines and shifts task priorities accordingly. In 20 minutes the steps below provide a more effective way to manage your priorities. Steps
- Create a "Home" or "Office" tab. Open a new Excel spreadsheet. Right click on the "Sheet1" tab at the bottom and click on Rename. Type in "Home" or "Office".
- Rename Sheet2 as "Template" and Sheet3 as "Points" by repeating Step 1.
- Create the Importance table. On the Points tab, fill in columns A, B and C:
- Define the name "Importance". Select from Cell A2 to C7. Click on Insert Name Define
Define the name as "Importance" and click OK. - Create the Effort Table. Repeat steps 3, 4 and 5 to create the Effort table in columns E, F, and G. Select cells E2 to G6 and give them the name "Effort".
- Create the Urgency table. Repeat steps 3, 4 and 5 to create the Urgency table in columns I, J and K. Name them "Urgency".
- Enter headings on Home tab. Click on the Home tab and insert headings in row 1:
- A - Priority A formula, 1 for the most important task, but can be over 100
- B - Task Name of the task.
- C - Importance An A, B, C, D, E, or F from the table.
- D - Effort A 1-5, from the Effort table.
- E - Urgency A formula based on Due date.
- F - Due Date when the task should be finished. Due dates are not hard and fast. Ramp Up tells you how early you could start the task and Extension tells you how many days it could slide. Getting a haircut might have a Ramp Up of 5 and an Extension of 4 - it doesn’t make sense to get a haircut 2 weeks early and people might notice if it was more than 5 days late.
- G - Ramp Up Days prior to Due date you could start task.
- H - Extension Automatic extension of Due date
- I - Days Left Formula. Number of days before Due date; negative if Due date has passed.
- J - Finished Date task was actually completed.
- K - Comment Any details for the task.
- Enter your list of tasks. Note Priority, Urgency and Days Left are left blank. They will be filled in with formulas. Here’s a sample of home tasks.
- Enter formulas for Days Left, Urgency and Priority. The formulas below are for row 2.
- I (Days Left) =F2-IF(ISBLANK(J2),TODAY(),J2)
- E (Urgency) =IF(I2>G2,5,IF(I2>0,4,IF(I2=0,3,IF(I2+H2>0,2,1))))
- A (Priority) =VLOOKUP(C2,Importance,2,FALSE) + VLOOKUP(D2,Effort,2,FALSE) +VLOOKUP(E2,Urgency,2,FALSE)
- Change the format for Cell I2 to Integer by right clicking on the cell, selecting format and make it a Number with 0 Decimal places.
- Copy formulas for Priority, Urgency and Days Left to the remaining cells in each column. Select cell E2 and type CTRL-C. Select cells E3 to E10 and click CTRL-V. Repeat to copy cell I2 to cells I3 to I10. Finally, repeat to copy cell A2 to cells A3 to A10. Ignore the odd values you get for undefined tasks.
- Sort the rows by Priority. Select from cells A1 to K, for as many rows as you have data. Then click on Data Sort.
- Save your priorities spreadsheet, including the date for versioning.
- Mark tasks Finished. As you complete tasks, mark the date in the Finished column. Remember CTRL-; (control key and semi-colon) immediately enters the current date.
- Watch Priorities change each day. Here are the priorities over several days. On July 13 all tasks are before the Ramp Up period, so have large numbers. On July 20th, higher priorities (smaller numbers) appear for four tasks, including Mow Lawn which has hit its Due date. On the 21st, the priority is higher because we're in the Extension period and on July 23rd it's even higher because it's beyond the Extension period. Pay bills also goes through an escalation on the 23rd and 25th.
Tips
- Keep separate Excel files for family/home and work.
- Split large tasks into smaller ones.
- Read articles listed below on prioritizing and time management.
- Sort the task list every day if necessary.
- Copy recurring tasks to the Templates tab, so you can find and recopy them back easily.
- Add conditional formats on Due date to indicate when it is overdue.
- Weekly, monthly (or perhaps double that) count the number of completed tasks in each period. This may be the only positive feedback you might get on your work.
- Feel free to change the points given for each part of priority.
- Feel free to add more columns - who assigned the task, category, etc.
- Use AutoFilter to select past due tasks (Urgency=1) or highly important tasks (Importance="A")
Warnings
- Save the spreadsheet every few sessions for recovery.
- The calculated priorities are not ordinal numbers. Completing a “1” priority task doesn’t shift all the others up. Priorities can range to over a hundred and not all numbers are possible. Focus usually on priorities between 1 and 12.
- Don't worry about having too many tasks - even two months of tasks can wait at the bottom of the list until their due date approaches.
- Time management is highly personal and this spreadsheet may not fit with your needs and preferences. It may feel intrusive or just too demanding to visit daily. It may work for you, but not your friends or vice versa.
- Instead of carrying your Excel files with you all the time, use Google Spreadsheet so your files will always be available to you.
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