MS nets good income

A 29 per cent growth to $741 million, from $575 million has been attributed to healthy sales of Windows 95 and the increasing market presence of Windows NT.

Microsoft claims that server sales of NT during the quarter were three and a half times the sales for the same period, the previous year, although would not post a sales figure to justify the claim. Combined NT and BackOffice sales are expected to more than double for the year, ending June 30. Greg Maffei, Microsoft's treasurer said that NT server software would account for about 40 per cent of the server software market, by June and would therefore be used to encourage greater sales of products such as BackOffice and SQL.

Outlining Microsoft's future intentions, Mike Brown, Microsoft's chief financial officer said, "We are building increased functionality and Internet capabilities into our products, and pursuing advances in operating systems, enterprise client/server products, and basic research that should reap benefits for the entire personal computer industry and its customers."

Microsoft can be contacted by telephone on 01734-270001.