While many folks recommend waiting for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (or maybe 5) before "upgrading" from Windows XP to Vista, apparently Microsoft has managed to sell a few copies of its latest desktop operating system. In fact, Microsoft reports that it's sold 88 million copies since launching Vista in January.

Microsoft has apparently seen a 20 percent growth in Vista sales for the last three quarters. Microsoft also announced its quarterly earnings yesterday, showing that the company made $13.76 billion, or about 27% more than the same period last year.

So while there's been a lot of talk lately about Ubuntu, Leopard, open source, and web applications, it's worth remembering that Microsoft is still the dominant force in software. The company is projecting revenue of around $59 billion next year.

Everyone knows that Microsoft makes a lot of money off of MS Office, and you know, that operating system that's installed on the vast majority of computers in the US and many other countries. But ever wonder just how much?

Turns out Microsoft made $51.12 billion in revenue during the fiscal year that ended June 30th. That's up 15% from the previous year. During the second quarter of 2007. Microsoft brought in $13.37 billion in revenue, up 13% from the same period last year.

But lest you think Bill Gates is swimming in a pool of $100 bills, Microsoft's profit for the quarter was just $3.07 billion. Umm, yeah, that'd still pay for a lot of swimming pools.

Google, on the other hand, reported $3.87 billion in earnings for the quarter, with a net profit of $925 million. While that exceeded sales expectations, the earnings figure was a bit lower than shareholders had expected, which sent stock prices down.

Answering the challenge brought by sites such as Revver, Google's YouTube is looking to launch a revenue sharing model for top posters on the popular video sharing web site. While YouTube is still the most dominant force in online video sharing, sites like Revver have attracted top video posters by offering to share in revenue from advertising on the site. However, unlike Revver's service, YouTube's revenue sharing won't be available to all users - only those that Google feel are worthy of entering into deal with.

According to a post on the official YouTube blog, Google has already chosen top YouTube celebs such as LisaNova, renetto and HappySlip to share in the cash that's rolling in from advertising revenues on the site.

But while the number of posters that will share in the profits is currently small, YouTube says that new posters who create original material and build a substantial audience will get an invitation to the revenue sharing program. In other words: if you have a video camera and a good idea, now seems like a pretty good time to up your game.

A web 2.0-sized boatload of buzz has surrounded Twitter, the addictive service that allows its users to answer one simple question: what are you doing? The service has made appearances in everything from your friend's blog to the New York Times, and everyone seems jazzed about how fun tweeting is. While we're all having a good time, however, its creators, Obvious, keep hinting at how many practical uses they have up their sleeve for Twitter. Even though they haven't revealed any of their cards just yet, the rest of us are left wondering: how is such a seemingly frivolous service going to make money?

As a user who has taken the Twitter pill hook, line and sinker, I've been mulling this question for some time now. I came up with a few strategies, but then I figured: why not run them by the Twitter crew themselves? The least they could say was 'no comment,' but fortunately Evan Williams, one of Obvious and Twitter's founders, responded with a few of his own. Read on for my attempts at making Twitter some money (I'm waiting for my job offer Ev), as well as some choice words and ideas of his own from Evan.

Financial announcements are usually pretty boring, but they do provide some insights into the strength and direction a company might be headed in as well as some interesting details about the financial status of the company.

On the point here, Google released their third quarter results Thursday, and no surprise here, Google is doing extremely well. The world's top search engine saw profits double from a year ago. The big jump was for the most part due to the huge, ever-growing list of advertisers, and partners that have teamed up with Google, such as Fox, eBay, and Intuit. Google's revenue's hit $2.69 billion in the third quarter, an increase of 70% from the third quarter of 2005, and a 10% increase from the second quarter of 2006.

Ever wonder how much Google needs to operate? Well the third quarter saw operating costs hit $931 million, which equals 35% of revenue.

Now, let's take a look at some of Google's revenue:

• Google-owned sites generated revenue of $1.63 billion. 60% of total revenue. An 84% increase since the third quarter of 2005.
• Google's partner sites generated $1.04 billion through AdSense programs. 39% of revenues and a 54% increase since 2005's 3rd quarter.
• Revenues from outside of the U.S. accounted for 44% of all Google revenue, up 2% since the second quarter of 2006.
• A few of the partnership deals that Google has worked out with other companies, includes revenue sharing. The revenues shared with partners hit $825 million this quarter.

Google has a big bank account, and it has a balance of $10.4 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. Just imagine what Google could develop with that kind of cash!

Now for employment. Google now employees 9,378 full time employees worldwide as of September 30th 2006. That figure is up 18% from 7,942 in June 2006.

So as you can see, Google is doing quite nicely. They are making money, providing excellent services, and sitting on the top of the search engine pedestal. If you care to listen to a live audio webcast of Google's third quarter earnings call you can check out at Google's Investor Relations site.

DivX, the little video compression software company that could, is aiming to go public this week, CNET is reporting. The company has almost matched last year's annual revenue of $29.3 million in the first 6 months of 2006, and after adding copy protection to its software which helped it land in over 50 million DivX-certified devices to date, the company is now shaking hands with its former enemy: Hollywood studios. DivX is hoping to strike it big with said studios in a lucrative web distribution deal for films, though as far as we can tell, no deals are itching to be signed just yet.

BusinessWeek is running a story featuring Kevin Rose on the cover, with the headline: "How This Kid made $60 Million In 18 Months." That sounds like a heckuva success story, but not everyone believes the math. Our own CEO Jason Calacanis debunked it himself, but since he owns us and Netscape - a digg competitor - I figured y'all might want to hear it from others in the community too, including Jason Fried at 37signals and Scott Rosenberg - writer, editor and co-founder of Salon.

The debunking more or less centers around figuring out how BW came upon their numbers, since much of the talk in the article is of what Digg is estimated to be worth, and where the company is going to move next - not what Rose presently has in his pocket. Ultimately, it sounds like BW took Digg's $200m estimated worth and divided it by Kevin's roughly 30% ownership to snag that $60m phantom number. Decent math, but shoddy tactics. BW says they got the numbers from 'unnamed sources', but that doesn't get them out of the trouble of slapping it on their front cover.

Check out the debunkings I've linked for more in-depth details on the article and where BW went wrong, as well as some funny parodies that are already arising, including *surprise!* how 9rules has suddenly announced that they themselves have made billions in just 12 months!