For the first time, Microsoft has said it will pay shareholders dividends, rather than just add to its private $43.4 billion cash mountain. Microsoft hasn't paid dividends before because it was expanding rapidly and its share price kept climbing, so shareholders could rely on profits from growth. But following the bursting of the stockmarket bubble (which followed closely behind Judge Jackson's guilty verdict against the company) not too many people are confident about Microsoft's share price doubling every year, if ever. By one of life's happy coincidences, of course, two of the biggest Microsoft shareholders are young(ish) Will Gates and Steve "Danceboy" Ballmer. Reuters has calculated that Gates should collect almost $100 million in dividends, while Ballmer is due $37.7 million. (Pay attention: it's unfair if Microsoft doesn't pay dividends, because the shareholders don't get their due; and it's unfair if Microsoft does pay dividends, because the people who actually built the company get so much of the money.)
Either way, Microsoft has reported a net profit of $2.55 billion on sales that grew by 10% from $7.74 billion in the same quarter last year to a record $8.54 billion.
