Microsoft reports first drop in quarterly earnings EVER

Bad economy, or Vista really sucks? Maybe both.

Microsoft today reported a 6% drop in year-over-year revenue for the quarter ending March 30, 2009. Microsoft’s drop in net income was larger, falling 32% to $2.98 billion. Microsoft said that the Client, Microsoft Business Division, and Server & Tools divisions were "negatively impacted by weakness in the global PC and Server markets." In other words, PC sales are down. Microsoft expects "the weakness to continue through at least the next quarter."

One note of good news, for the economy at least: Microsoft says revenue from enterprise customers "remained stable".

Oh, and one other point of interest.  Microsoft’s COO, Kevin Turner, said:

…Windows 7 operating system, which remains on track for a fiscal year 2010 launch… (July 1, 2009-June 30, 2010).

In the recent past, they’ve been talking about a late 2009 release, this statement indicates that Microsoft is leaving the door open to a release in the first half of 2010.