Update: Microsoft beats Street, reports strongest Q1 in seven years
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Strong sales of new and old products alike led Microsoft to its fastest first-quarter growth in seven years with the company reporting growth in all five business segments and both revenue and EPS (earnings per share) that beat analyst expectations.Revenue for the fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30 was up 27 percent at $13.76 billion compared to $10.81 billion a year ago, Microsoft said Thursday. Consensus estimates from Thomson First Call analysts were for the company to generate revenue of $12.57 billion. Microsoft&#39;s EPS for the quarter was $0.45, which also soundly beat Thomson First Call consensus estimate of $0.39. Net income for the quarter was $4.29 billion, a 23 percent increase over the $3.48 billion reported a year ago.At $5.92 billion, operating income for the quarter also had double-digit percentage growth: An increase of more than 25 percent over operating income reported for the same period last year of $4.47 billion.Microsoft&#39;s first quarter was buoyed by the highly anticipated launch of the Xbox 360 game Halo 3 on Sept. 25, just days before the quarter&#39;s close. In its first 24 hours on sale, the game brought in $170 million in sales; it became the fastest selling video game in history after being in the market for just a week and a half, according to the company.Strong performances from Microsoft&#39;s client, business, server and tools, and online divisions also contributed to revenue growth in the quarter. In particular, Microsoft said sales of its Windows Vista OS experienced double-digit growth through multi-year business contracts, and demand for Microsoft Office, Windows Server, and SQL Server was also high.Looking ahead, Microsoft said it expects to report revenue in the range of $15.6 billion to $16.1 billion for its second quarter, which ends Dec. 31. Operating income is expected to be in the range of $5.9 billion to $6.1 billion, while diluted EPS are expected to be between $0.44 to $0.46 for the second quarter, the company said.For its fiscal year 2008, Microsoft expects revenue in the range of $58.8 billion to $59.7 billion and operating income in the range of $23.3 billion to $23.7 billion. Diluted earnings per share are expected to be between $1.78 and $1.81 for the fiscal year, the company said. These new numbers were increases in Microsoft&#39;s guidance for the year from previous forecasts of $56.8 billion to $57.8 billion in revenue and $1.69 and $1.73 in EPS for the year.On a conference call Thursday, Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell said the company raised its financial guidance for the year due to improved outlooks for Microsoft&#39;s client business, its server and tools operation, and the Microsoft Business division.Sales of Vista seem to be on an uptick, and the fact that many long-term contracts Microsoft has with enterprise customers were up for renewal during the quarter helped fuel some of the revenue growth for the OS. Liddell expects that although companies have signed up for Vista in their contracts, many won&#39;t adopt it until the arrival of Vista Service Pack 1, expected in the first calendar quarter of 2008.&quot;It&#39;s still early days&quot; for Vista adoption, he said.Though analysts on the call gave Microsoft kudos for the quarter, there was still criticism about the performance of Microsoft&#39;s Online Services Division (OSD), the home of Microsoft&#39;s search and online advertising business. Revenue for the division grew only 25 percent year over year despite the close during the quarter of&#160;Microsoft&#39;s $6 billion acquisition of digital services agency aQuantive, a company expected to fuel growth in online advertising revenue.Liddell acknowledged on the call that this kind of growth for OSD is &quot;acceptable, but not stellar,&quot; saying, &quot;we&#39;d like to see it higher.&quot;This story was updated on October 25, 2007
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On the heels of beating out Google to buy a piece of Facebook, Redmond racks up its fastest-growing quarter in seven years.
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MICROSOFT said first revenues were up by 12 per cent as the software company benefited from stronger-than-expected computer and server shipments.
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BREAKING NEWS - In early numbers from Microsoft prior to its quarterly financial results call to analysts this afternoon, the company reported revenue gains of 27% annually to $13.76 billion, and net income nicely higher by 23% annually to $4.29 billion, in what the company is calling its fastest first quarter of growth since 1999.
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The Dow Jones industrial average reached a milestone in Wall StreetÂs nearly seven-year recovery from corporate upheaval.
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(InfoWorld) - Thursday was finally windows Vista launch day. But though banners were flying in downtown Manhattan on the big day, celebrating the launch of Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007, CEO Steve Ballmer made it clear that the company is anxious to move on, while business customers pegged for Vista adoption wondered whether there was really much to celebrate. âThereâs a bunch of work we still need to do,â Ballmer said of the next Windows client OS. Supporting the shift from single-core to multicore chips and improvements in network infrastructure are priorities. Microsoft also wants to add more features to meet the needs of IT administrators, software developers and end-users. âHow we do software plus service within Windows is going to continue to be a big theme,â Ballmer said. Enterprise customers were wary. âSure itâs a big day for Microsoft, but what are we really getting?â asks Paul Lindo, an independent New York IT consultant. âWith all the delays and features being dropped, this looks to me like it might just be Windows XP with a prettier face.â Vista suffered several features âadjustmentsâ as well as a lengthier-than-expected road to shrink, including the infamous 2004 dumping of WinFS and a ground-up re-programming effort. But now that the day is finally here, Microsoft is well pleased with its new OS offering. âIt may have been a long road, but watching how our early adopters are responding to the platform, we know weâve got a winner,â said Brad Goldberg, Microsoftâs general manager of client product management. Responding to views such as Lindoâs, Goldberg said he remained assured. âVista was designed specifically to give business users recognizable benefits over the last generation platform,â he said. âThat includes productivity, security, networking and noticeably less reliance on IT.â Those last two items especially represent significant development efforts, covering the new UAC authentication model, updated internal diagnostics (including error messages that actually speak English), a completely revamped networking client and new IT tools such as the Reliability Monitor -- a quick dashboard of system reliability. These features were built specifically so users would spend less time talking to the help desk, thus decreasing overall IT spending. Windows is far better prepared for initial deployment than its predecessors, Goldberg said, citing more than a year of overall QA effort, by far the longest QA period in Microsoftâs history. Despite the enterprise focus of some features, it will still be consumers who lead the charge on Vista adoption. According to a report released by IDC last week, Vista will account for 90 percent of new Windows client deployments in 2007 by home users, compared with just 35 percent of new Windows client deployments by businesses.
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Microsoft  signaled confidence  to a rattled stock market by raising its full-year earnings  outlook above Wall Street targets and reporting a 79 percent  rise in quarterly profit on Thursday.
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Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Thursday posted higher quarterly earnings as revenue rose 12 percent, but its shares fell after the world&#39;s largest
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A Microsoft Corp. division that competes head-to-head with the open-source Linux operating system posted sharply improved financial results, helping to fuel a strong quarter for the Redmond software company.
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(MENAFN) The world&#39;s biggest software company, Microsoft Corp, said that its first quarter profits grew to $2.9 billion as consumers and businesses boosted demand for new computers, AFP reported.
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Strong sales of new and old products alike led Microsoft to its fastest first-quarter growth in eight years, with the company reporting growth in all five business segments and both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) that beat analyst expectations.
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Microsoft&#39;s $1.2 billion acquisition bid for Oslo-based Fast Search and Transfer and a dour report on Amazon marked the new year&#39;s first full trading week in the United States, as technology company share prices continued to slide.The increase in tech share prices that occurred in 2007 -- a banner year for IT company earnings -- appears to be in danger of evaporating, as fears of a general downturn and bad news on the consumer front resound among industry insiders. U.S. Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke&#39;s announcement on Thursday that he would move to cut interest rates to spur growth provided only a temporary halt to a decline in the Nasdaq Composite Index, which closed Friday at 2,440, down 212 points from its close at the end of 2007.This week, investment banking firm Goldman Sachs forecast that the United States will suffer a recession this year. Company analyst David Kostin reduced his recommendation for the amount of technology stocks that investors should keep in their portfolios, from 19 percent to 15 percent.Investors usually like to keep a good percentage of their holdings in tech stocks to hedge their bets. IT companies are truly global, with major U.S. vendors earning about 50 percent of their revenue outside their home countries.But inside the United States, tech companies are getting hit with a double whammy: a predicted weakening of consumer spending because of falling home prices and a resulting crisis in financial markets. Up to 18 percent of U.S. and global tech spending comes from financial companies, according to Forrester Research.Turmoil in the financial markets will likely dampen tech buyouts from private equity investors, according to the 451 Group&#39;s Tech Banking Outlook Survey, released this week. But that might not stop cash-rich technology companies from continuing to shop for deals, it noted.On Tuesday,&#160;Microsoft announced that it would buy enterprise search software company Fast Search And Transfer&#160;for 6.6 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.2 billion). Microsoft said it will integrate Fast Search&#39;s high-end search technologies into its enterprise infrastructure offerings, including SharePoint Server 2007 business productivity platform.Microsoft is locked in a search battle with Google, not just for general Web searches but also for businesses. Fast Search shares got an immediate boost on the Oslo exchange, where its price jumped from 13.35 kroner to close at 18.80 kroner Tuesday. The deal did not keep Microsoft shares from sliding in a generally down market for tech, however.On the consumer side, investors were particularly spooked by comments on Tuesday from AT&amp;T CEO Randall Stephenson, who said the company has had to stop servicing an increasing number of customers who did not pay their bills. The company closed Tuesday at $39.07, down by $1.96 for the day.The news did not bode well for other technology companies that sell to consumers. Citing uncertainty about U.S. consumer spending, American Technology Research Monday put a &quot;sell&quot; rating on Amazon, which then on Tuesday fell by $2.66 to close at $85.22 on the Nasdaq.Even companies that received positive reports from analysts this week were slammed by the general market slide. Lazard Capital Markets started its coverage of virtualization-software darling VMware, which had a successful IPO last month, by issuing a &quot;buy&quot; rating on Tuesday. VMware&#39;s share price jumped by $5.39 to close at $79.89 Wednesday, but slid back to $77.53 by the end of the week.
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Personal income, boosted by a large dividend payment from computer software giant Microsoft Corp., shot up by a record 3.7 percent in December.
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Buoyed by continued strong worldwide sales of personal computers, the Microsoft Corporation yesterday reported strong growth in profits and sales even as it faces the challenges of being a mature technology company.
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Microsoft  signaled confidence to a rattled stock market by raising its full-year earnings outlook above Wall Street targets and reporting a 79 percent rise in quarterly profit on Thursday.
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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Microsoft said Thursday that its fiscal first-quarter net income rose 11 percent from a year earlier as client software sales, server revenue and Xbox sales all rose.
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Microsoft Corp. said its fiscal first-quarter earnings rose 11 percent, beating analysts' expectations, as the company benefited from stronger-than-expected computer and server shipments.