Microsoft Revenues Jump 10 Percent

Microsoft Corp. saw fourth-quarter revenues jump 10 percent, to $7.25 billion, fueled in large part by high demand for its Windows XP operating system and for enterprise servers, according to officials.

The Redmond, Wash., software giant said on Thursday that net income and earnings quarter ending June 30 were $1.53 billion and $0.28. For the same period last year, net income and diluted earnings per share were $65 million and $0.01.

The company also announced revenue of $28.37 billion for the full fiscal year ended June 30, 2002, a 12 percent increase over the $25.30 billion reported the previous year.

Microsoft officials said desktop software revenue was $4.97 billion, up 9 percent in the June quarter. For the full fiscal year, revenue was $18.90 billion, up 7 percent from the prior year. The company said demand was particularly strong for the Professional versions of Windows.

Meanwhile, Microsofts enterprise software and services revenue was $1.35 billion for the fourth quarter, up 4 percent from the prior year. For the fiscal year, enterprise software and services revenue was $5.11 billion, up 6 percent from the prior year. Revenue for the Windows Server family of products grew by 13 percent this quarter and 10 percent for the full year, outperforming the underlying server hardware market by a wide margin.

“Microsoft SQL Server continued to outgrow its competition, and we were thrilled to see our other server products, such as BizTalk Server and Content Management Server, gain traction and perform nicely,” Paul Flessner, senior vice president of the .Net Enterprise Server Division, said in a statement.

“Robust customer demand for Windows XP and other desktop software enabled us to deliver strong operating results this quarter, in spite of continued uncertainty in the technology markets,” Chief Financial Officer John Connors said in a statement.

Microsoft forecasted revenue for the first quarter to be in the range of $7 billion to $7.1 billion, with income in the range of $2.9 billion and $3 billion and earnings be either $0.42 or $0.43.