Microsoft to Boost Commercial Customer Financing

by Mike Bevel CollectionIndustry.com

Microsoft and CIT Group are partnering to provide financing to Microsoft?s commercial customers.

Microsoft hopes the plan will boost slowing revenue growth. ?Customers are willing to pay cash, but we can sell more if we offer financing,” Brian Madison, general manager of Microsoft Financing in Redmond, WA, told Reuters.

Commercial financing is generally the way most hardware vendors go. It?s a new development in the marketplace to see a software vendor taking that tack. However, trends in software show that customers are spending almost ? if not more ? on software as they are on hardware already. Microsoft?s plan is to take advantage of this trend and, they?re hopeful, boost seriously lagging sales.

Gone are those red hot halcyon days of yore ? 1990, for instance ? when Microsoft was a speeding bullet train to profitability. Now, both Microsoft?s growth and share price have lagged in recent years.

The software giant plans to use cash from its balance sheet to finance its loans to customers.