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Over the past three years, Microsoft has steadily improved its cash flows from operating activities. The starting line has improved dramatically over this period, from $12.599 billion to $17.681 billion. Consequently, cash flow from operating activities has also improved, from $14.404 billion in2006 to $21.612 billion in 2008.

The company's cash flow from investing activities, however, has declined. They have increased their capital expenditures over the past three years from $1.578 billion to $3.182 billion. Microsoft has seen a decline over the past few years in cash flows from investments, from $10.23 billion to $6.648 billion. "Other outflows" saw a huge spike in 2008 from $1.15 billion to $8.053 billion, which resulted in the significant outflows last year from investing activities. Microsoft has consistently retired stock over the past several years. In the stronger markets of 2006 and 2007 it was able to retire $17.1 billion and $20.793 billion respectively. They scaled this program back in 2008, however, in the face of weaker markets. They only retired $9.039 billion in stock last year. The result of all this is that over the past three years, there has been significant fluctuation in Microsoft's cash position. They increased cash flow in 2006 by $1.863 billion, then decreased it in 2007 by $603 million. Last year, with the stronger flows from operations and decreased stock retirement, they increased their cash position by $4.288 billion.

As with Microsoft, Sony has seen a strong increase in cash flows from operations over the past three years. They have increased 89.4% from ¥399 billion to ¥757 billion. This improvement is only partly attributable to top line improvement, as Sony's starting line hardly improved at all in 2007. Instead, that year saw a significant shift in the change in working capital. With regards to investing activities, Sony has not increased its capital expenditures over this time period. Also unlike Microsoft, Sony has seen significant capital outflows in all three years from its investments. They have enjoyed inflows from other activities, but not enough to offset the increasing losses. Sony has consistently been able to increase its cash flows from financing activities. 2008, however, saw a strong spike in cash flows from financing activities, from ¥172 billion to ¥510 billion. Overall, the strength of Sony's improvement in cash flows from operations, in particular with respect to its starting line, has resulted in a steady increase in cash flows over the past three years. In 2006, Sony saw ¥76 billion in outflows. In 2007, this turned around, to ¥96 billion in inflows. Last year, inflows had improved to ¥286 billion.