Does Microsoft Have Too Much Cash

[shummie]

An interesting discussion was started at InvestorGeeks.com (http://http://www.investorgeeks.com/articles/2005/11/08/the-princes-of-digital-media/#comments) about whether or not Microsoft has too much capital in cash and short-term investments. MSFT's $40b in cash and short-term is much more than any other comparably sized company?

Any ideas on why this is or whether this indicates good or bad things for the software giant?

Regards,

Jason

[Sniper]

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Any ideas on why this is

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Because Microsoft makes alot of money with relatively low expenses /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[LearnedfromTV]

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Any ideas on why this is

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Because Microsoft makes alot of money with relatively low expenses /images/graemlins/wink.gif

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And now they have to decide what to do with it. Given the recent Gates memo and restructuring within the organization, it looks like they are about to really go to war. Too late? If Vista is successful and they can ward off openoffice, they'll have plenty of cash to devote to chasing Google's ad revenue. The question is whether they will be as capable of innovation as Google seems to be, since that is what they need to win the war.

(Expect to see their dividend increase as well)

[Uglyowl]

There was an article in Barron's this weekend that discussed this exact same issue. If you are interested you should take a look.