bakedjake - 12:12 am on Jul 21, 2004 (gmt 0)

From: [microsoft.com...]

MSFT: Q3 2004

Net income and diluted earnings per share for the third quarter were $1.32 billion and $0.12 per share.

Server and Tools grew a solid 19%

MSNŽ reported another profitable quarter on robust revenue growth of 16%

The ceiling is certainly not coming down. In fact, the reason they're probably doing this is because a bunch of potentially huge legal problems have been cleared up, most notably the anti-trust appeal, but also the Sun and Lindows (which was not significant from a money perspective, but very significant from a trademark perspective) suits. The cash doesn't do them any good sitting in a bank, and all of their need for that large of an amount of liquid cash has disappeared.