Microsoft reported for the quarter: revenue from the Xbox grew by 55%, from Windows fell by 29%

Microsoft was informed that in October-December 2010, they had a confident quarter with a profit of $ 8.17 billion and record revenue of $ 19.95 billion. The result was about the same as a year earlier, when they had a profit of $ 8.5 billion and revenue of $ 19 billion - but although the total numbers almost did not change and managed to slightly exceed expectations, internal changes are significant: excellent sales of the Xbox 360 and Kinect increased the income of the entertainment and devices by 55% to $ 3.6 billion, while revenues from Windows and Windows Live fell by almost 30% to $ 5.5 billion. This means that the difference between the two devices department and the Windows department was reduced to $ 1.3 billion, while a year ago it was $ 4.8 billion - and this vividly explains why Xbox was the main theme of Ballmer’s speech at CES this year, after how it was usually ignored, and why Microsoft is porting Windows to ARM processors while cell phones and tablets are becoming more popular.

Update: as our friend Michael Gartenberg remarked, in the fourth quarter of 2009, the revenue of the Windows department was increased by delayed pre-order payments for Windows 7, and, if we subtract them, the difference between Windows and Xbox changed from 3.1 billion to 1.3 billion, and Windows sales were down only 8 percent. This makes little difference globally, but the delay in pre-order payment changes the context: Microsoft moved the money to get a large-scale quarter to launch Windows 7, and now everything is aligned.