Microsoft Beats All Records

Microsoft just reported a record annual revenue, crediting its success to "solid customer acceptance" of Windows Vista and Office 2007, along with increasing sales of SQL Server, Windows Server and Visual Studio. The Redmond-based company reported an annual revenue increase by 13 percent, slightly beating analysts' expectations for both revenue and profit, while at the same time paying $1.1 billion to repair or replace damaged or defective Xbox consoles.

As the annual revenue surpasses the $50 billion milestone for the fiscal year that just ended, Microsoft sets a new personal record. "Fiscal '07 was an excellent year from my perspective," Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft said on the earnings call with investors and was cited InformationWeek. "It's exciting to see [Windows Vista and Office 2007] off to such a strong start." Microsoft expects to continue to increase both its revenues its momentum in the coming year. "We have healthy core businesses and are strategically investing in growth opportunities, which will build on our success and contribute to continued double-digit revenue and earnings growth in fiscal year 2008," Liddell said.

Colleen Healy, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations, said that an important part of the company's revenue was achieved because of Windows Vista, which was released at the beginning of the year and now continues to grow in demand as customers buy new PC and corporations and enterprises upgrade their IT base. One other business that went extremely well for Microsoft was the online services business, that saw some major investments in the last months. Even if the division saw big revenues - of $688 million, a net increase from the last year, because of massive internal investments into new data centers - as a whole, the division lost nearly $240 million.

While the advertising revenue jumped up 33%, it is expected that future increases will be much more modest. Liddell attributed some of the growth in online services to Live Search Club, a promotion to give prizes to people using Microsoft's search engine. He predicted 10% to 11% growth for online services next quarter, and said to expect better integration between Windows Live services and more data center build-out over that time period.