Microsoft issued poor fourth-quarter earnings with profit plunging 29 percent, its first decline in full-year revenue in the company's 34-year history.

The software maker cited the global economic downturn and a slumping PC market as factor of its unfortunate company's earnings.

It’s been common since Microsoft’s inception to increase its value year-by-year however for the first time the company posted an earnings of $3.05 billion, or 34 cents a share, down from $4.3 billion, or 46 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue was down 17 percent, to $13.1 billion from $15.83 billion.

“Our business continued to be negatively impacted by weakness in the global PC and server markets,” said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft.

Profit slumped across all of Microsoft's business segments, including a particularly steep 33% decline in its Client division, which makes the Windows operating system products.

Down for the Year

Microsoft annual 2009 earnings started in June 30 2008 and ended June 30 2009 also reflects the global downturn. Revenue came in at 58.44 billion with a 14.57 billion net income, or 1.62 per share.

The 2009 annual earnings reports is compose of four consecutive quarterly revenue reports of $15.06 billion, $16.63 billion, $13.65 billion and $13.10 billion, respectively. Net incomes are $4.37 billion, $4.17 billion, $2.98 billion and $3.05 billion, respectively, reflecting $0.48, $0.47, $0.33 and $0.34 per share, respectively.

Microsoft annual financial data ended June 30 in 2008 has revenue of 60.42 billion with a net income of $17.68 billion reflecting $1.87 per diluted share. It is composed of $13.76, $16.36, $14.454 and $15.837 billion of quarterly revenue with net income of 4.28 billion, 4.70 billion, 4.38 billion and 4.29 billion respectively.

Microsoft newest fourth quarter ended June 30, 2009 revenue is down to 17% decline while its net income and diluted earnings per share was 29% and 26% down, respectively.

While Microsoft's 2008 annual earnings toppled 2009 annual financial results, the 2007 earnings is mostly identical. The Company’s annual report is very similar to 2007 data with a revenue result of $51.12 billion with a $14.06 billion net income, or $1.42 per share compared to 2009 annual earnings result of 58.44 billion with a 14.57 billion net income, or 1.62 per share.

Other annual financial results of Microsoft below 2007 are all lower except to 2008 earnings.

- Outlook-

Microsoft for this year has made a lot of announcement which include the upcoming operating system Windows 7.

“While economic conditions presented challenges this year, we maintained our focus on delivering customer satisfaction and providing solutions to our customers to save money,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft.

The windows 7 OS will be generally available globally on October 22 this year. Although its release is very anticipated by most some are not. If Windows 7 could erase the image which was created by its predecessor Windows Vista Microsoft fiscal 2010 year would be meaningful for the company.

Microsoft also unveiled its new Bing search engine to the public in June. Bing has gained popularity over its first four weeks. Survey shows an increase to its traffic and has gains popularity.

Although Google still dominates, Microsoft has seen an 8 percent unique user’s increased on its Bing search engine since its release.

We’re gratified to report that there has been some great interest in trying out Bing and that those experiences are yielding positive results! Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the online audience business group at Microsoft said.

The re-launched of its search engine business has received a lot feedback. Microsoft's new search engine Bing has achieved impressive traffic growth according to different statistic companies.

According to the latest data from research firm ComScore, Microsoft captured 8.4 percent of U.S. Internet searches in June, up from 8 percent the month before.

Given all the publicity and advertising around Bing, we were expecting a month-on-month increase, said Citi analyst Mark Mahaney, in a research note issued soon after the figures were published.

Search engine was around several years ago which Google and Yahoo's main weapon and serve as their backbones.

Lastly, Microsoft unveils its cloud-based suite of Office software to be launched next year. Cloud computing has been reaping positive feedback as alternative rather than building a server.

We believe that cloud computing is the next generation of network computing. It could be the experience of server, storage, networking and virtual technology provider, in the increasing movement of computer and data resources onto the Web, Sun Microsystems said in defining cloud computing.

Most of the tech firms like IBM, Google has been putting more effort on the Cloud computing.

Microsoft fiscal 2010 year is very promising despite of the ongoing recession and slumping PC market. The company is provides operating expense guidance of $26.6 billion to $26.9 billion, for the full year ending June 30, 2010 although it was very weak but with all the guns that Microsoft had loaded and ready to go this company can still kick that can kill.

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