SAN MATEO (07/18/2000) - Microsoft Corp. beat Wall Street expectations Tuesday in posting revenues of $5.8 billion, or 44 cents per share, for the last quarter of its fiscal year, which ended June 30.
First Call Inc., which polls financial analysts, predicted that Microsoft would report earnings of 42 cents per share.
For the fiscal year, Microsoft's revenues totaled $22.96 billion, an increase over the previous year's $19.75 billion. Net income totaled $9.42 billion.
"Although we remain guarded in the near term about business PC growth rates, we look forward to the tremendous opportunity in front of us with the Windows 2000 generation of server products," Microsoft Chief Financial Officer John Connors said in a statement.
Many industry observers were looking to Microsoft's earnings statement to gauge the acceptance of Windows 2000, which was released in February. In the company's statement, Microsoft officials said only that "customer enthusiasm" for Windows 2000 Server was "strong." At PC Expo last month, Microsoft said it had sold 3 million copies of Windows 2000.
During the quarter, sales of Windows 2000 Advanced Server doubled over sales of its predecessor, Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition, in the previous year, according to Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash.