Mikah, Richard, and Paul discuss Microsoft earnings, Windows 11, RTX Spark, more earnings, AI and dev, XBOX and gaming, and more.
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Microsoft Earnings
News:
- Microsoft earned a net income of 36.6 billion on revenues of $92.3 billion in the quarter ending September 30, 2026.
- Those are both double-digit gains over the year-ago quarter, or 32 percent and 19 percent growth, respectively, year-over-year (YOY).
Analysis:
- We were promised more transparency but what we got is a mixed bag
- Microsoft is too complicated a business for only two top-level business segments
- Windows revenues from PC makers down 27 percent (!)
- XBOX gets a hard revenue number and it’s not bad
- Microsoft spent $45.2 billion on capex (AI) expenses, up 30 percent – this is not the real number – and it will get bigger
- No paid Copilot numbers, weird
- Microsoft “earned” $10 billion in revenues from OpenAI – OpenAI still owes Microsoft money – MS stake in OpenAI is down, no one said why
Windows
We talked about this last week, but I now have two sources at Microsoft confirming that Microsoft’s AI strategy is the reason it’s fixing Windows 11
Microsoft discusses its work to make Windows 11 fit in 8 GB of RAM
Microsoft Edge is first Windows browser to support accelerated app launches
Windows Insider
RTX Spark
More Earnings
AI/dev
Three and a half years after it should have happened, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI agree to let sites opt out of scraping
OpenAI to unify chat and Work but not Codex
Google says schools that disable AI will lose access to Google Search – They’re integrated. It’s nice to see Google channeling Microsoft again
.NET Conf is next week and Microsoft just posted the schedule
XBOX and gaming
There was a bit of drama when XBOX COO left after only a few months on the job, and now there’s more
New titles coming to Game Pass in early November
The next Elder Scrolls game is “ES VI Sentinel”
GTA VI to rival Call of Duty – in the amount of disk space it requires
Tips and picks
App pick of the week: Start11 v3
Start11 v3 adds Start widgets and menu sharing, plus Taskbar Islands, app groups, more.
App pick of the week #2: LM Studio
It’s the obvious place to start with local AI and it works on any PC, not just an RTX Spark. Just be sure to get the right app.
RunAs Radio this week: PowerShell 7.7 and DSC 3.3 with Jason Helmick
https://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/1061
Brown liquor pick of the week: Caol Ila 12
https://www.malts.com/en-gb/distilleries/caol-ila