It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
For Microsoft, exceptionally strong sales of Windows 7 helped the company drive yet another record in quarterly performance.
For the third quarter of Microsoft’s fiscal 2010, ending March 31, the company turned in revenues of $14.50 billion, up 6 percent from the same period a year ago, while earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter came in at $0.45, a gain of 36 percent.
“More than 10 percent of all PCs worldwide are running Windows 7 today, making Windows 7 by far the fastest-selling operating system in history,” the company said in a statement.
A similar story may be in the works for Microsoft;’s enterprise business which is gaining considerable traction prompting comparisons of Microsoft to the Oracle of old.
“Our record third-quarter revenue along with continued rigor on cost management resulted in exceptional EPS growth,” said Microsoft CFO Peter Klein in a statement.
On the other hand, if you were Amazon.cp,, you had something other than the best of times, While not the worst of times, it was not a favorable Wall Street week. Amazon stock dropped as much as 12 percent at one point in the week, the largest intraday decline since October 2008. It has fallen 12 percent this year.
Capital spending for the forward-thinking company ballooned to $196 million last quarter as the Bezos-led organization built more warehouses to stock an ever widening array of products and the computer “hardware” to support trransactions of those products in new data centers.
Amazon, which generates almost half its revenue from outside North America, has also been stung by falling European currencies, which cut into overseas receipts. The company slashed prices on the Kindle to repel a threat posed by Apple Inc.’s iPad tablet computer. That may eat into profit too, said Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at Caris & Co. [24×7]
