14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft and money go together like peanut butter and jelly. Boosted by strong personal computer sales and demand for its corporate database software, Microsoft Corp. posted a 5 per cent rise in quarterly profit on Thursday.
Chris Liddell, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said in a conference call with analysts ''The customer reaction to our newly launched products has been fantastic? ''We feel confident about how we will end the year.'' He added that "The growth in our core businesses was healthy during the quarter driven by strength in Server and Tools and the success of our Windows Client products in a robust PC market? The quarter also marked the beginning of an important product cycle for Microsoft with the launches of Xbox 360 [and] SQL Server 2005 ... which were extremely successful and well received by our customers."
Microsoft confirmed it still plans to ship between 4.5 million and 5.5 million Xbox game consoles by the end of June. The new product launches, including the next version of its flagship Windows operating system, stand at the core of Microsoft's efforts to revive a stock that has underperformed against every major stock index since the start of 2003.
Bill Kornitzer, portfolio manager at Buffalo Funds said, ''It was more a sense of relief than anything else? ''Deferred revenue was a little light but guidance for the next quarter was a little better than I expected.'' Their net income totaled $3.65 billion, or 34 cents per share, in its fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 31, compared to $3.46 billion, or 32 cents per share, a year earlier. According to Reuters Estimates Quarterly, revenue rose to $11.84 billion versus sales of $10.82 billion in the year-earlier period and slightly below analysts' forecast of $11.97 billion.
Whatever the reasons, Microsoft is not only making some waves, but they are publicly splashing the competition. This year's earning will prove to be more of the same with their planned release of Windows Live. Also their plans to release Office 12 and Microsoft's newest Windows OS Vista will add some more revenue to redominating goliath.