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Two Microsoft Q1 FY2014 charts you'll want to see

The soft spots in Microsoft's first quarter of its fiscal 2014 are more apparent when using the old reporting categories.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

As part of its Q1 fiscal 2014 earnings, Microsoft is using its new reporting structure with five totally new divisions, in its reporting. ZDNet's Larry Dignan has the breakout using the new categories.

Those new categories mash up a bunch of products from unrelated divisions into new reporting units. (Example: "Devices & Consumer -- Other" includes Bing & MSN; Office 365 Home Premium; First-Party Video Games and Marketplaces.)

Luckily -- at least for this quarter -- Microsoft also is still providing those of us who watch the numbers with charts breaking out earnings around the old, familiar five business units: Client, Microsoft Business Division (MBD) Server & Tools, Online Services, and Entertainment & Devices.

Using the old categories, it's easier to see where the soft spots were in Microsoft's strong first quarter. There are two that jump out: Windows client and Entertainment & Devices.

Here's the comparative revenues chart:

msq114revs

And the comparative net income chart:

msq114net

These charts make it a bit easier to see that Windows struggled during the quarter, as did Entertainment & Devices. (Online Services is still losing money, but less.) Windows client income was down 20 percent, compared to the year-ago quarter, which was right before Microsoft launched Windows 8. Income from Entertainment & Devices was down 171 percent compared to the year-ago quarter. 

In the slide deck explaining results, Microsoft officials noted that consumer sales of Windows (non-Pro versions, as they're described) were down this quarter. Windows OEM revenues weren't as bad as Microsoft was expecting. On the plus side: Surface revenues (which are reported into Windows client) for this quarter were $400 million. Microsoft officials said they sold double the number of Surfaces this quarter that they did in the previous calendar quarter. (Note: We don't know what either of those numbers are.) Surface RT sales were better than anticipated, officials said, while some potential Surface Pro customers held off, waiting for the Surface Pro 2.

Entertainment & Device income was down, as Xbox sales have seemingly slowed ahead of the November 22 launch of the new Xbox One. Entertainment & Devices also includes Windows Phone sales and Android patent licensing, neither of which are broken out specifically. 

It's clear whether one looks at the old reporting structure or new reporting structure breakouts that Microsoft is continuing to fire on all cylinders with its enterprise products and services and has a ways to go on the consumer side.

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