Software giant Microsoft posts 35 percent jump in profit in Q3

NEWS
Software giant Microsoft posts 35 percent jump in profit in Q3
Friday, April 23, 2010

••• Software giant Microsoft said on Thursday that its third-quarter net profit rose 35 percent to $4.01 billion, slightly better than expectations.

Microsoft said revenue hit a record $14.50 billion in the quarter which ended on March 31, up six percent over the same period a year ago.

‘Windows 7 continues to be a growth engine, but we also saw strong growth in other areas like Bing search, Xbox Live and our emerging cloud services,’ Microsoft chief financial officer Peter Klein said in a statement.

Microsoft said revenue from its Windows computer operating system was up 28 percent over a year ago, driven by strong demand for the latest version, Windows 7.

‘Business customers are beginning to refresh their desktops and the momentum of Windows 7 continues to be strong,’ chief operating officer Kevin Turner said.

Microsoft’s fiscal fourth-quarter revenue will meet or exceed PC market revenues, said Klein, driven by a full pipeline of product updates including Office 2010, SQL server and SharePoint 2010.”You’ll see a wave of product launches in the fourth quarter,” Klein said.”Our business will continue to grow stronger than the market.”
• Source(s): Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft announces Windows 7 SP1

NEWS
Microsoft announces Windows 7 SP1
Thursday, 18 March 2010

••• There’s been talk floating around for quite some time about the coming of Windows 7 SP1. Today, we’ve got some details out of Redmond.

The short version: Windows 7 SP1 will pretty much just be a rollup of updates that have been previously released. Yay.

The slightly longer version: there will be other ‘minor’ updates, including support for a kicked-up remote desktop client (using RemoteFX) and Dynamic Memory support. Both of those are Windows Server technologies, so they’re not of much interest to anyone running Windows 7 at home.

SP1 does historically act as a ‘green light’ to system administrators that it’s OK to upgrade to the new OS, but according to Brandon LeBlanc that hasn’t been the case this time around. In his words, “Many organizations are already in the process of deploying and are receiving benefits from their Windows 7 deployment.”

Once finished, Microsoft said it would make the Windows 7 service pack available for download and through Windows Update.