Microsoft officials have said repeatedly their strategy of offering enterprise customers hybrid options for cloud and on-premise software deployments is the right one, and yielding expected results. However, Microsoft faces intense pressure from many quarters, including from Google's Apps suite, which competes directly with Exchange and Office.

As such, much is riding on the success of upcoming Microsoft products like the Windows 8 family of OSes for desktop and laptop PCs, tablets and, possibly, smartphones, and the Office 15 revamping of the Office productivity desktop and server-side applications like Word, Excel, SharePoint and Exchange.

In the third quarter, the Server & Tools Division, which includes products like the company's enterprise database SQL Server, posted revenue of $4.57 billion, up 14 percent, thanks in part to strong SQL Server and System Center sales.

The Microsoft Business Division grew its revenue 9 percent to $5.81 billion, helped by continued success of Office 2010 among both consumers and businesses, and of the Dynamics enterprise software family.

The Windows and Windows Live Division, whose revenue fell in the second quarter, rebounded with a 4 percent increase to $4.62 billion, thanks to "strong" sales of Windows 7, especially among enterprises.