PG, down, but with a more upbeat commentary than in recent history:
"While corporate IT spending was slow to improve this quarter, we saw strength across all of our consumer businesses, driving higher than expected revenue for the company," said John Connors, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "Delivering value to our customers with innovative software like the new Office System, Exchange Server 2003, and Small Business Server and executing on our plan to better help protect customers from a growing number of security attacks are our top priorities for the rest of the year."
Robust consumer demand for PCs during the back to school shopping season fueled better than expected Client revenue during the quarter. In addition, MSN(R) had another strong quarter with over 50% advertising revenue growth, and Home and Entertainment revenue grew by 20%, driven by the successful launch of the Xbox(R) holiday offering. Mobile and Embedded Devices also demonstrated momentum this quarter with revenue growing to $53 million on strong results from our Windows Mobile(TM), MapPoint(R), and Windows(R) Embedded products. Additionally, this week AT&T Wireless announced the availability of the Motorola MPx200, the first Windows Mobile-based Smartphone in North America.
Server and Tools grew a solid 15% over last year to $1.87 billion this quarter. Windows Server(TM), Microsoft(R) SQL Server(TM) and Microsoft Exchange all experienced double digit revenue growth, driven by a growing number of customers acquiring high-end enterprise editions. Windows Server 2003 has sold over two times as many licenses as Windows 2000 Server over the same period of time since launch. In addition, with over 120 million seats sold worldwide, Exchange continues to be a leading messaging solution for companies. |
