Seattle-area tech giants Amazon.com and Microsoft reported their earnings for the first three months of 2010 today, and each touted significant increases in profits compared with the same period a year ago. Microsoft (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MSFT]]) reported a quarterly profit of $4.01 billion, an increase of 35 percent over the first three months of 2009, thanks in part to sales of its Windows 7 operating system. Meanwhile, Amazon (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMZN]]) posted a quarterly profit of $299 million, a 68 percent increase over its first quarter of 2009, and said the Kindle e-book reader was its top-selling product. Both companies’ shares fell by a few percentage points after their earnings reports.
Author: Gregory T. Huang
Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003.
Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
View all posts by Gregory T. Huang