Redmond, Wash. – Jan. 27, 2011 – Microsoft Corp. announced record second-quarter revenue of $19.95 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2010. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $8.17 billion, $6.63 billion and $0.77 per share, respectively.   Prior year results reflect the recognition of $1.71 billion of deferred revenue relating to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option program and sales of Windows 7 before general availability in October 2009. Second-qua

An Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate build has leaked onto the Internet ahead of its public debut.     Internet Explorer 9 RC build 9.0.8073.6003 appeared on a number of file sharing sites on Friday, shortly before Microsoft is expected to unveil its latest public preview. The build is an escrow version of Internet Explorer 9 RC and is not expected to represent the final shipping build version of Internet Explorer 9 RC. Screenshots of a more recent escrow build surfaced on Friday, versi

Solid-state drives are wicked fast. SSDs start and shut down fast, and they perform read operations (especially random reads) at speeds that blow the doors off conventional hard drives. In the first installment of this series, I gathered the numbers to show just how much faster you can expect an SSD to perform in the real world.   But you might need to jump through some setup hoops to get top performance out of an SSD-equipped PC running Windows 7. That’s because Windows has evolved over many

With Microsoft well at work on the next version of Windows — more specifically with Windows 8 M2 development underway — many are hoping for a build to escape Redmond and leak upon us. The build may very well have escaped Redmond, but not to the general public, but through a chain of under-the-table passing from one trustee to the next.   DeviantArt user Misaki2009 with ties to the Russian leaking community has published the following screenshots of 6.2.7867.0.101020-1800 on his dA page:  

Albert, Chew, Product Manager for Excel, kicks off Excel's 25th anniversary celebration.     Excel is perhaps the most revolutionary tool for looking at numbers since the invention of the digital calculator. It has dramatically changed the way we analyze data and has improved productivity for everyone. Last year marked the 25th Anniversary of the Microsoft Excel franchise, and though I have only been the Excel Product Manager for the last two years, I have a clear memory of the early days o

Microsoft is currently preparing the Release Candidate build of Internet Explorer 9 and WinRumors has learnt of a new change.   Microsoft is currently testing builds of Internet Explorer 9 that include the ability to re-position the tabs to below the address bar. The current public beta build does not include this capability and Microsoft is expected to build this into the Release Candidate. Users can turn the functionality on by selecting “show tabs below address bar” after right clicking in

After a first tip this week on Microsoft’s Jupiter — a new “application model” for Windows 8 — I started nosing around to learn more about this mysterious new Microsoft codename.   Here’s a brain dump of what I learned after talking to a couple of sources of mine who spoke on the condition of anonymity, but whom I believe are in the know about the project.   Jupiter is going to be a new user interface (UI) library for Windows, built alongside Windows 8. It will be a thin XAML/UI layer on top

Microsoft veteran and Server & Tools Business (STB) President Bob Muglia is leaving Microsoft, according to an email that CEO Steve Ballmer sent to employees on January 10.     From Ballmer’s email:   “The best time to think about change is when you are in a position of strength, and that’s where we are today with STB – leading the server business, successful with our developer tools, and poised to lead the rapidly emerging cloud future. Bob Muglia and I have been talking about t