One Billion Dollar Charge For Surface Tablets -- Microsoft; We Knew It Was Going To Be Bad, But Did Not Expect It To Be This Bad

Some numbers rounded. 

Reuters is reporting:

Microsoft Corp on Thursday reported lower-than-expected quarterly earnings as slow personal computer sales ate into its Windows business and the company took an unexpected $900 million charge for its inventory of unsold Surface tablets. 

The massive charge underlines the struggles of the world's largest software company, which last week announced a deep reorganization to transform itself into a "devices and services" leader, but is struggling to make mobile computing as attractive as Apple Inc or Google Inc.

"That's the biggest miss we've ever seen from Microsoft, the biggest that I could remember," said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities.

"It looks like everything was weak."

Shocking. And the problem is that although this is a one-time charge, it's unlikely to get any traction.