Software giant Microsoft has posted first quarter fiscal revenues down 7.9 per cent to$16bn(£10bn),from$17.372bn(£10.8bn)achieved in the same period a year earlier.
The company claimed that the results partly reflected a decline in PC sales,as well as the deferral of$1.36bn(£850bn)in advanced sales of the forthcoming Windows 8 operating system,due for release 26 October,and a related upgrade offer for Microsoft Office.
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Broken down by division,the Windows&Windows Live Division,which includes PC operating systems,related software and online services,and PC hardware products,posted a sharp fall in revenues of 33.4 per cent,from$4.874bn(£3.03bn)to$3.244bn(£2.02bn).
The Microsoft Business Division,meanwhile,which includes Microsoft Office and Dynamics customer relationship management software,saw revenues decline by a smaller amount,by 2.4 per cent to$5.5bn(£3.42bn).
In the Entertainment and Devices Division,a marginal decline in revenue to$1.946bn(£1.21bn)masked a 26 per cent decline in sales of the flagship Xbox console,with unit shipments dropping from 2.3 million to 1.7 million,year-on-year.The Xbox forms part of Microsoft's entry in the"battle for the living room"and is a fully internet connected entertainment device.
Server&Tools,though,which includes server operating systems and the SQL Server database,as well as software development tools,became the second-largest division in Microsoft as it posted an increase in sales of 8 per cent to$4.552bn(£2.83bn).
The disappointing results follow on from fourth-quarter and full-year results to the end of June 2012,in which the company posted its first-ever quarterly loss due to the write-down on the disastrous$6bn(£3.74bn)acquisition of online advertising company aQuantive.
CEO Steve Ballmer,though,has suggested that the company is in the process of re-orienting towards devices and services,as reflected by the imminent release of the Microsoft Surface tablet computer,as well as smartphones based on the Windows Phone 8 operating system.
The front-end to the company's forthcoming series of operating systems is intended to provide a unified"look and feel"between various different devices,although it has not yet taken off on smartphone devices after more than a year on the market.
