Mobile Computing News

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As Microsoft Office 2010 is readied, Microsoft saw its quarterly profit jump by 35 per cent, thanks in no small part to Windows 7 and undoubtedly making CEO Steve Ballmer very happy.

The critically received operating system has been selling very well, helping propel Microsoft to record Q3 revenue of $14.5 billion (the company’s financial year starts in June). This revenue represented a noteworthy 6 per cent increase over the same time last year but Wall Street, ever so hard to please, saw Microsoft share prices fell with the news.

Xbox Live

Outside of Windows 7, Microsoft reported strong growth within Xbox Live, Bing, and the company’s upcoming cloud services.

Business buyers return

Photo: Microsoft

Microsoft believes a resurgent technology industry could see Windows 7 grow more still. Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Turner, claimed that business customers were beginning to ‘refresh their desktops’ and expected Windows 7 sales and momentum to remain strong.

One-tenth of PCs now have Windows 7

The performance of Microsoft’s current operating system sees the OS business group grow by 28 per cent, when compared to the beginning of last year, and over one-tenth of PCs around the globe are now running this operating system. These figures represent a stark contrast to the badly received and disappointingly selling Windows Vista operating system, which was mired with problems from launch day, forcing Microsoft to announce a replacement sooner than the company would have liked.

Project roadmap

Photo: Facebook

Microsoft has recently released its Kin handsets, and is readying the release of Windows Phone 7 Series. In addition, the company is still investing a lot of resources into its Xbox platform, which has seemed to take a somewhat permanent turn to profitability. The company has also just sent Microsoft Office 2010 for pressing, representing the preparation of its other cash cow. The landscape for Microsoft Office 2010 is significantly different than it was for previous releases, with free cloud-computing productivity suites proving viable alternatives. In this regard, Microsoft teamed up with Facebook to release docs.com in hopes of slowing, and ultimately eliminating, the progress Google Docs has made.