Halo 3 and Vista helps boost Microsoft shares

Microsoft Corp has now lifted their full-year forecasts and have announced a 23 percent quarterly profit growth and has sent their shares up 11 percent, this is far more higher than many analysts had estimated and this growth I largely due to two things, the release of Vista and the release of Halo 3 on their Xbox 360 games console. Investors have been waiting for the sales of Windows Vista to improve ever since the operating system was released in January as it provides at least 80 percent of Microsoft’s profits as the software is on at least 90 percent of personal computers, and it now seems as if the growth of Vista has happened.

However the release of Halo 3 has earned Microsoft over $300 in just its first week in sales, a figure that is still growing. Reuters have said Wall Street predicted a lower forecast profit than the $4.29 billion that Microsoft actually made in just their first quarter. This is up from the $3.48 billion in the first quarter of 2006. Total revenue has risen to $13.76 billion, that an increase of 27 percent in the three months which ended September 30 2007.