Microsoft CFO Peter Klein on the keys to driving up profits and his outlook for online services and business.

Microsoft has announced record revenue of $19.02 billion for the second quarter ended Dec. 31, 2009, a 14% increase from the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $8.51 billion, $6.66 billion and $0.74 per share, which represented increases of 43%, 60% and 57%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period.

These financial results include the recognition of $1.71 billion of deferred revenue, an impact of $0.14 of diluted earnings per share, relating to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program and pre-sales of Windows 7 to OEMs and retailers before general availability. Adjusting for the deferred revenue recognition, second-quarter revenue totaled $17.31 billion, and diluted earnings per share totaled $0.60 per share.

“Exceptional demand for Windows 7 led to the positive top-line growth for the company,” said Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft. “Our continuing commitment to managing costs allowed us to drive earnings performance ahead of the revenue growth.”

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 launched globally on October 22 as anticipated. Through the second quarter, Microsoft has sold over 60 million Windows 7 licenses making it the fastest selling operating system in history.

“This is a record quarter for Windows units,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. “We are thrilled by the consumer reception to Windows 7 and by business enthusiasm to adopt Windows 7.”

Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP

Windows 7 is a great operating system! Add to that the free Microsoft software that is called “Windows Live” and you have an amazing range of tools at your finger tips.

BUT there are also many FREE 3rd party applications that can be used on Windows 7.

Here are 3 of my favourite:

#1 – The GIMP - www.gimp.org

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

#2 – CamStudio – http://camstudio.org

CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs).

CamStudio can also add high-quality, anti-aliased (no jagged edges) screen captions to your recordings in seconds and with the unique Video Annotation feature you can even personalise your videos by including a webcam movie of yourself “picture-in-picture” over your desktop.

Great for creating training videos!

#3 – FeedReader – www.feedreader.com

Feedreader is the most robust, highly-functional personal aggregation solution on the market today. It dynamically reads, collects, and organizes syndicated Web content, and seamlessly delivers it directly to user desktops. With Feedreader, you have instant, convenient access to the up-to-the-minute news you need, without information overload.

Feedreader automatically downloads updates from your favorite Web sites. So, it eliminates the need for you to constantly monitor multiple Web pages, while allowing you to immediately identify and retrieve new articles – no matter how long you’ve been away from your desk.

Happy downloading

Kind Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP

Windows 7 has become my default operating system for both work and home – I still use XP SP3 and Vista SP2 for my business.

Below are my favourite 5 Windows 7 features:

#1 – ISO Burner in Windows 7

The ability to burn ISO images natively within Windows is new to Windows 7. This has proved to be a great feature for me as I often download ISO files from MSDN/Technet, and having the ability to create a disc directly in Windows 7 is fantastic.

More information at: www.win7articles.com/burn-iso-images-in-windows-7.html

#2 – Windows 7 DVD Maker

Windows 7 DVD Maker enables you to create professional-looking video DVDs of your home movies and photos that can be viewed on your DVD players, regardless of geographical region codes.

(Windows 7 Home Premium and above editions)

More information at: www.win7articles.com/windows-7-dvd-maker.html

#3 – Windows 7 Action Center

The Windows 7 Action Center consolidates message traffic from key Windows maintenance and security features, including Windows Defender and User Account Control. If Windows requires your attention, the Action Center icon appears in the taskbar.

This means NO MORE annoying balloons appearing in the bottom right hand side of the screen!

More information at: www.win7articles.com/windows-7-action-center.html

#4 – Windows 7 Resource Monitor

The resource monitor in Windows 7 is one of a few handy tools for monitoring your systems performance. In the case of this tool it does this in real time.

It can both collect and display real time information about the: CPU, Disk, Network and Memory.

It now provides a greater level of information and monitoring, in addition to the change in layout – for instance the graphs are now on the right hand side of the window.

More information at: www.win7articles.com/windows-7-resource-monitor.html

#5 – Windows 7 Performance

Not so much of a “feature” you can physically see on your PC, BUT the fact that Windows 7 has been optimised to start and run to much faster than Windows Vista/XP, Windows 7 is just so much more responsive!

You might find this article and interesting read: Upgrading a 5 Year Old Laptop to Windows 7

Well there mine, have you got a favourite?

…let me know below!

Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP