Microsoft Reports a Strong Q3 Thanks to Win 7

Microsoft yesterday released details of its revenue for the company's third fiscal quarter. Redmond reported $14.5 billion in revenue and a net income of $4.01 billion or $0.45 per share.

The company said the results don't include the deferral of $305 million of revenue relating to the Microsoft Office 2010 Technology Guarantee program. Adjusting for the revenue deferral, third-quarter revenue totaled $14.81 billion, an increase of 8 percent over the prior year period.

Heavily hit by the recession, Microsoft last year recorded the first decline in quarterly revenue in its 23-year history as a public company. Revenues in the fiscal third quarter ended March 31 2009 slipped 6 percent to $13.65 billion from $14.45 billion in the same period the previous year.

Microsoft pointed to Windows 7 as one of the big reasons for the jump.

"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," said Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "Our record third-quarter revenue along with continued rigor on cost management resulted in exceptional EPS growth."

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