Microsoft announces Q2 2010 earnings

$6.63b profit, Xbox revenue up 55%, Windows down 29%

Microsoft just announced it's had itself a solid second quarter, posting an $6.63 billion profit on record revenues of $19.95 billion. That's more or less about the same as last year, when it racked up a $6.66 billion profit on $19 billion in revenue -- and while the numbers look stable and Redmond managed to slightly beat estimates, things are changing fast underneath the bottom line: strong Kinect and Xbox 360 sales drove Entertainment and Devices Division revenue up 55 percent to $3.6 billion, but Windows and Windows Live revenue fell nearly 30 percent to $5.05 billion. That means the revenue gap between Microsoft's consumer device business and the Windows business is now just some $1.3 billion, compared to $4.8 billion this time last year -- and it undoubtedly explains why Xbox got top billing at Ballmer's CES keynote this year, after traditionally being ignored, and why Microsoft is moving Windows to ARM as the mobile and tablet spaces heat up.