Microsoft Earnings Rise 12 Percent

[mazzy]

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. reported healthy earnings and revenue growth for its fiscal first quarter, but investors instead focused on concerns about prospects for long-term corporate contracts and the long wait for a new version of the company's dominant Windows operating system.

Microsoft sought to downplay the corporate contracts issue. Chief financial officer John Connors said investors who focus on a quarterly financial barometer that relates to such contracts "have missed the bigger picture."

The Redmond-based company on Thursday reported earnings of $2.90 billion, or 27 cents per share, for the three months ended Sept. 30. That compares with earnings of $2.61 billion, or 24 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.

The most recent quarterly earnings included a stock-based compensation expense of 5 cents per share. Without that, the company would have earned 32 cents per share.

Analysts polled by Thomson First Call had been expecting earnings of 30 cents per share, with estimates between 29 cents and 32 cents per share, on revenue of nearly $9 billion.

Revenue was $9.19 billion, up 12 percent over $8.22 billion a year earlier

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http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY0..._rel_q1_05.mspx