A Wow! Quarter for Microsoft

Listening to the rebroadcast of the earnings call without visuals, one could sense CEO Satya Nadella verbally punching the air expressing his pleasure about Q1 2015's results demonstrating real changes at Microsoft in terms of execution, innovation, and putting the customer at the heart of what Microsoft does.  The customer is now regarded as a partner, not just as an ATM.

Look at what is happening to the competition. HP has chosen to split itself apart, which is probably the right action at the right time, but it will distract their customer-facing activities as the go-to-market operations change in size and charters.  IBM finally needs to go CEO Rometty's woodshed and reinvent its market proposition beyond the Smarter Planet commercials.  Cisco sits on its balance sheet and continues to blather on about the "Internet of Things."

Things don't buy hardware and software: people do.  Corporate buyers clearly want more from their go-to providers.

MSFT reported Q1 2015 revenue of $23,201 million, up 25% over the prior-year period, or up 11% excluding the $2.6 billion in Nokia Phone revenue (9.3 million Lumia smart phone units) included in the fiscal 2015 number.  Gross margin dollars increased 11% despite the inclusion of lower margin phone revenue and an unfavorable mix to low end equipment in that business.

Research and Development expenditures of $3,065 million increased 11% over the prior-year period. In addition to returning cash to shareholders, the company sends a message that it will continue to invest in innovation on behalf of the customer's future needs.

$1,140 million of integration and restructuring expense was recorded in the quarter, amounting to $0.11 per diluted share. GAAP diluted EPS of $0.54 in Q1 2015 compared to $0.62 in the prior-year period.  DPS of $0.31 increased by 11% year-over-year.

Apart from OEM Windows licensing revenue declining by 2% and Consumer revenue decreasing by 5% as the transition to Office 365 continues, all the businesses performed well, certainly compared to the competition.

Computing and Gaming Hardware revenue of $2,453 million grew by 74% year-over-year, and the gross margin rate increased by over five percentage points. $908 million of Surface 3 revenue in the quarter continued to demonstrate the potential for a device that can do real work, while having the look and feel of a tablet.

Devices and Consumer Other revenue of $1,809 million increased 16% year-over-year.  Search advertising revenue increased by 23% and Bing's share of U.S. search increased 140 basis points to 19.4%.  7 million Office 365 subscribers increased 25% sequentially over the prior quarter.

Finally, the Commercial Business revenue of $12,280 million increased a solid 10% over the prior-year period. Server product revenue grew 11%, and revenue increased across the range of servers from SQL to the newer, data center-oriented specialty servers.

Other Commercial Revenue of $2,407 million increased 50% over the prior-year period, driven by Commercial Cloud revenue growing 128%. The CEO noted in his remarks that 80% of the Fortune 500 use Microsoft's cloud infrastructure and services, while at the same time it was noted that the Azure pay-by-usage computing model is enjoying significant penetration into start-ups.  With Amazon's recent record losses, one would suspect that its commodity cloud services might be looked at askance as that company comes under pressure for its suspect business model.

Free cash flow in the three months ended September 30, 2014 was $7.1 billion, and $2,307 million in dividends were paid and $2,888 million in common shares were repurchased.

Finally, two new board members were joined the Microsoft board, both of whom add professional profiles and board experience that should serve the new CEO and the management team well.  Charles Scharf is the CEO of Visa, and he held senior executive positions at Bank One Corp., JP Morgan Chase, and Salomon Smith Barney.  Financial services companies with their massive volumes of transactions and their growing need for robust data security should be prime customers for Microsoft's commercial data center and cloud offerings.  Teri List-Stoll is the CEO of Kraft, Inc., and her twenty year career at Procter and Gamble should give her insight into the management and development of brand equity for consumer products; her service on the Danaher board is also useful because Danaher's culture (http://www.danaher.com/our-culture/danaher-business-system) which centers on the customer, measures efficiency and performance, and looks to optimize the portfolio is consonant with CEO Nadella's aspirations for the future Microsoft.

Overall, this quarter, especially in the current tech environment, demonstrates exceptional focus and performance across Microsoft, both in its business execution and its governance.