[Alpine]

YOU HATE THEM, Charlie really hates them and even I sometimes have my doubts, but someone out there obviously doesn't and they're still handing over the readies to the company it's just so fashionable to hate.

Microsoft's Q1 profits are up 23 percent on last year at a stonking $4.29 billion, returning a dividend of 45 Cents a share. The company says sales of Halo 3, Windows and Office helped it beat Wall Street predictions. The news sent MS shares up 12 points in early trading.

Revenue for the period ended September 30th was up 27 percent to $13.76 billion from $10.81 billion last year, beating analyst forecasts by more than $1 billion.

Someone out there - or 88 million someones - bought a copy of Vista, 28 million of them in the last two months. This brought $4.14 billion in revenue in the quarter, making the Vista doom mongers look a tad silly. Sales of high-end Vista SKUs were the most popular.

Office 2K7 sales were up 20 percent to $4.11 billion, while Halo 3 and the Xbox 360 generated a profit of $165 million in the quarter with 1.8 million Xbox 360 consoles sold.

Accounting voles put down their spectacles and predicted annual earnings of $1.78 to $1.81 per share on revenues between $58.8 and $59.7 billion, some $2 billion up on earlier estimates.


The INQuirer