Vista, Office ’07 spur Microsoft profits

Benefiting heavily from the sales of Windows Vista and the new version of its Office software, the world's largest software maker, Microsoft Corp., Thursday announced revenue of $14.40 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2007, a 32 percent hike over the same period of the prior year.

Topping company estimates, its fiscal third-quarter profit surged 65 percent, posting a net earnings of $4.93 billion for the quarter ended March 31, compared to $2.98 billion during the same period in 2006.

With a total net cash flow from operations of $7.29 billion, Microsoft recompensed $7.72 billion in cash to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends, the company reports state.

While, Microsoft's Client Division- a unit primarily dealing with Windows sales, posted a sales figure of $5.3 billion, a 67 percent gain over past year, including $1.2 billion of deferred sales, the Microsoft’s Business Division, dealing a largely with Office sales, posted $4.8 billion, a 34 percent jump over a year earlier. Office too benefited from deferred sales to the tune of about $500 million.

Launched in January this year, robust demand for both Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system led to a 72 percent growth in the diluted earnings per share for the quarter to $0.50.

"I am extremely pleased that we delivered a quarter of strong double-digit growth for revenue, operating income and EPS," said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft.

"And I am looking forward to a very good finish to this fiscal year with strength continuing into fiscal 2008," he added.

Starting its success story with MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) in mid 1980’s, Microsoft released its first retail version of Microsoft Windows, a graphical extension for its MS-DOS operating system in November 1985.

Founded in 1975 with headquarters in Redmond, Washington, USA, Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices.

Pinning further profit growth, Microsoft expects second quarter revenue to be in the range of $13.1 billion to $13.4 billion, while operating income is expected to fall between $5.0 billion and $5.2 billion for the same period. The company is expecting diluted earnings per share of $0.37 to $0.39 for the quarter ending June 30, 2007.