Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) thanks you, corporate buyers, for its latest quarterly earnings, which beat Wall Street expectations. In its earnings call Thursday, the software giant said growing business sales--particularly Microsoft Office and Windows 7--were largely behind revenue that was 25 percent higher than the same period last year. However, the company's many detractors saw reasons to be less than enthusiastic.

The company's profits rose 51 percent over the same quarter last year, surprising many analysts and pundits who predicted tough times for Microsoft in light of Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) wild success with the recently-launched iPad. It turns out, according to Microsoft, that customers still want to buy Windows PCs and tablet computers.

Microsoft, "which has been written off by the mainstream press because it was not Apple, earned $5.41 billion in net income on revenue of $16.2 billion," writes Nick Farrell in a post at TechEye. "Shareholders however were not that enthusiastic. Even on the back of good news [Microsoft's] shares only rose by one percent. If Apple had made the same announcement, share prices would have eclipsed the sun."

Plenty of detractors shared the shareholder's lack of enthusiasm for Microsoft's very positive quarter, many eager to point out that Apple saw higher revenue in the same quarter.

"Revenues fell below Apple, by more than $4 billion, yet another sign that the aging Office-Windows-Windows Server applications stack is declining in relevance before cloud-connected mobile devices," writes Joe Wilcox in a post at BetaNews.

Wilcox points out that Microsoft relies primarily on the same revenue streams today as it did 10 years ago, including Office and Windows. In contrast, Apple depended mostly on the Mac 10 years ago, but now is a market leader in music players, mobile apps and digital music, and is very successful in the smartphone and tablet computer markets.

"Microsoft's challenge, as it embarks into fiscal 2011, will be the successful expansion or extension of its push into cloud services, mobile operating systems, search and supporting services and desktop and mobile gaming," Wilcox writes. "The point: Apple has reinvented its business and profited, while Microsoft has not."

For some observers, though, even the pounding that Microsoft takes vis-à-vis Apple is healthy for the software giant.

"But all this bad news is actually good for Microsoft. It gets to fly under the radar," writes Austin Carr in a post at FastCompany. "Overlooked by a world that prefers to follow shinier products (or announcements of shinier products, or announcements of announcements of shinier products), Microsoft has managed a successful Windows 7 launch."

No longer at the top of the heap, Microsoft no longer has to assume the mantle of industry "bad guy."

"In many areas, it can rightly claim to be the scrappy newcomer. In mobile, they're a distant last place, nipping at the heels of Apple and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). In gaming, they're beating up on incumbents Nintendo and Sony," Carr writes.

For more:
- see Nick Farrell's post at TechEye
- see Jo Wilcox' post at BetaNews
- Austin Carr's post at FastCompany

Related Articles:
The take away from Ozzie's "Dawn of a New Day" memo
Microsoft thumbs nose at Google with beta of 'Office 365'
IE takes hit in browser wars' latest battle
Microsoft to focus on the cloud