 It's quarterly report time, and we doubt the boys in Redmond mind taking a little shine off Apple's big day with their first quarter results -- especially since Microsoft posted profits of $4.3B on revenues of $13.7B, an increase of 23 percent over last year. The company attributed the great quarter not only to a 90-percent spike in Xbox 360 demand due to what the what analysts are amusingly calling the "Halo effect," but also to strong performance by both Vista and Office -- Microsoft says demand for Vista is "encouraging," especially in markets like Brazil, India, and China. There wasn't much mention of the company's recent investment in Facebook or how Bill and the boys plan on reversing the online division's loss of $264M, but when you're playing around with four billion in profits, we suppose you can ignore pocket change like that.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in] |