Hi,
Nearly 2 billion in search advertising is not a drop in the bucket it's in users faces lol

Jody Thornton said:

I wonder if just possibly, that will mean less telemetry gathering and what now, since now Microsoft's focus is no longer private consumers. Will they perhaps try to reinvigorate Windows Phone, or some other Windows RT variant?

It sounds like the company has had enough of getting its fingers burnt with tangibles. The *only* successful Microsoft hardware product I can think of is the 30-yr-old Microsoft Mouse and, after divesting itself of Nokia, I think any resurgence of Windows Phone is unlikely. The developers have been re-purposed and - as we all know - *we* consumers now appear to be the QA team.

With the failure of the Store (both in revenue and developer support), it also appears MS is caught in a cleft stick. With an eye on Apple's cash mountain, MS appears desperate to force consumers into a similar 'walled garden' approach (including the continuation of trying to lock down Windows slowly but surely to stop us 'tweaking') yet without the required 3rd-party developer support that's fundamental to success.

Jody Thornton said:

I wonder if just possibly, that will mean less telemetry gathering and what now, since now Microsoft's focus is no longer private consumers. Will they perhaps try to reinvigorate Windows Phone, or some other Windows RT variant?

I think they realize they are late to the game by trying to compete with the likes of Google or Apple.

Late or not to compete with others, MS is not going to drop telemetry gathering. They may never reach the likes of Apple, Google, etc., but MS will not say no for $7-8B per year additional revenue*. Especially, when the infrastructure is already in place for this revenue source, the consumers more or less already accepted telemetry, and if anything, it'll continue to grow. Not to mention that MS still has the option of in OS/Apps ads that could boost this revenue source greatly.

This is just a business decision that influenced by the executive board, Wall Street, stock holders, etc., without much regard to the consumers. And it's not specific to MS, any other business would make the same decision, if given the chance...

*-The report quotes quarterly earning, roughly $1.8B for three month period. The average daily revenue from this source is about $20M per day.