James Delahunty
29 Oct 2010 23:12
Microsoft Corp. beat predictions to report a company record for the first quarter.
The Redmond-based software giant experienced much higher performance particularly of its Windows and Office software products. It announced a 51 percent rise in first quarter profit, with net profit for the three months to September at $5.4 billion.
Revenue for the quarter was reported at $16.2 billion, a company record for the first quarter, and a 25 percent rise over the same period of last year. Microsoft did say however that it had deferred some revenue from Windows sales during the same quarter of last year, and if it had not done so, the net profit would have been reported as 16 percent higher.
Nevertheless, the quarter surprised analysts and investors that have been questioning the company's ability to adapt to major changes in the market. "Microsoft had a very good quarter," said Toan Tran, an analyst at Morningstar.
"Windows is still doing well, Office is doing well, and servers and tools are doing well. The big three businesses are firing on all cylinders as the PC upgrade cycle continues."
Ray Ozzie, who was Microsoft chief software architect, resigned last week and warned that Microsoft needed to begin thinking beyond the PC.
"This was an exceptional quarter, combining solid enterprise growth and continued strong consumer demand for Office 2010, Windows 7, and Xbox 360 consoles and games," said Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft.