Microsoft last night reported a 24% surge in quarterly net profits to $3.14 billion on the back of robust demand for its software and server products. Headline earnings per share for Microsoft's first financial quarter were 31 cents, just ahead of analysts' forecasts.
But Microsoft took a charge of two cents a share after it agreed a fortnight ago to pay $761m to RealNetworks in a deal that settles a competition suit taken out by the smaller media software outfit.
Microsoft's revenue for the three-month period rose 6% to $9.74 billion, slightly below Wall Street forecasts.
'We continue to see healthy demand for our products, and customer excitement is high for our next wave of product innovations kicking off next month with the launches of Xbox 360, SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005,' chief financial officer Chris Liddell said.
The Xbox 360 represents the next generation of Microsoft's foray into computer games hardware, and will be going up against new offerings from Japanese rivals Sony and Nintendo.
But another major product launch by Microsoft has been put back a year. Vista, the successor to the Windows XP operating system, is now planned to be released late next year after the company hit problems developing the software.
