The profit for the fiscal first quarter to December 31 compared with earnings of 1.55 billion dollars in the same period in 2003. It amounted to 32 cents per share.

The earnings per share were better than the company's own forecast of 29 cents a share but below the Wall Street consensus forecast of 33 cents a share.

Revenues in the quarter meanwhile advanced 6.5 percent to a record 10.82 billion dollars for the maker of the dominant Windows operating system used on the vast majority of personal computers worldwide.

"Our record revenue came from across-the-board strength in both our business and consumer segments," said John Connors, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "And our long-term approach to growing new businesses is paying off."

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