In the first half of fiscal year 2009, Microsoft posted US$31.7 billion of revenue, which was up 5% over the same time period last year, and $11.9 billion in operating income. The company reported in December that it had nearly $20 billion in cash.

"If you look at the numbers, just the raw numbers, it was actually a very good first half," said CFO Chris Liddell, who appeared this week with Ballmer at the financial analysts meeting in New York City.

Ballmer said Microsoft will seek to grow its share in various markets that it has been in for years including mobile and databases and attack new markets like netbooks and entry-level servers.

Some of the company's effort will be to protect market share, as is the case with the upcoming Internet Explorer 8, some will be to gain market share, as in its ongoing battle to steal database customers from , and some will be a massive uphill battle like search and advertising where dominates.

Ballmer announced that Windows 7 would be available on netbooks and said Microsoft is working on a low-cost, low-functionality entry level server called Foundation Edition.