Brisk Sales to Business at Microsoft; Devices Lag

The company’s software products and services, woven deeply into the fabric of everyday working life, are selling briskly. The other side of Microsoft is focused on consumers, who have not fully embraced the company’s new operating system, its search engine or its mobile devices.

The divergence in the two sides of Microsoft — which is searching for someone to replace its longtime leader, Steven A. Ballmer — was underscored on Thursday. Microsoft said that in its latest quarter, its mighty corporate software and services business helped increase commercial revenue 10 percent, to $11.2 billion. Devices and consumer revenue grew only 4 percent, to $7.46 billion.

“They’re the gold standard in corporate,” said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. “And in consumer they continue to struggle.”

In the end, the corporate business helped lift overall sales and profit. The company reported net income of $5.24 billion, up from $4.47 billion the same quarter a year ago. Its revenue surged 16 percent, to $18.53 billion, from $16.01 billion a year earlier.

Microsoft’s stock rose more than 5 percent in after-hours trading.

Still, Microsoft has acknowledged that it needs to do far better in consumer services and devices, and it has made a startling series of moves over the last few months to address the problem. It is undergoing a major corporate revamping to reduce infighting among business divisions. It reached a deal to buy Nokia’s mobile device and services business for $7.2 billion.

And in the middle of those changes, Mr. Ballmer announced that he would step down as chief executive within a year.

That has left a vexing problem for the board as it tries to find his successor. Microsoft’s business is increasingly complex. It now has more than 100,000 employees, and its businesses span corporate software, video games, Internet search, cloud services and tablets.

The company has been considering candidates with a variety of backgrounds, including Alan R. Mulally, the chief executive of Ford; Paul Maritz, a former Microsoft executive now at a cloud services provider, Pivotal; Tony Bates, who came to Microsoft through its acquisition of Skype; and Stephen Elop, the Nokia executive who has announced plans to rejoin Microsoft when it completes the acquisition of Nokia’s devices business.

But if the choice of a leader is difficult, it is becoming increasingly clear what parts of the business need the most help.

Microsoft said sales of copies of Windows to makers of consumer PCs declined 22 percent in the quarter from a year ago, while sales of Windows for professional PCs rose 6 percent. Over all, Windows licensing revenue to PC makers declined 7 percent.

That is a reflection of a broad slump in the PC market that is hurting Microsoft and other companies. Consumers, in many cases, are shifting their spending to mobile devices like tablets. A new version of Windows designed for touch-screen devices has not resuscitated sales in the market.

Yet Microsoft has given no indication that it will back away from the consumer market.

Sales of its Surface tablets, and smartphones with its Windows Phone operating system, are having a hard time gaining market share. But this week, new versions of the tablets — the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 — went on sale. And an updated version of Windows Phones was announced last week.

In recent quarters, the commercial side has helped buoy sales and profits, and the latest quarter was no different. A basket of products aimed at businesses, including its SQL Server database, Exchange e-mail system and cloud services, sold well.

A much bigger portion of Microsoft’s profit comes from its commercial business. The company said operating income from that segment was $5.05 billion during the quarter, more than double the $2.2 billion in operating income from its devices and consumer business.

In an interview, Amy E. Hood, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, said Microsoft was “seeing signs of stabilization” in the business portion of the PC business, while the consumer side of it was “more volatile.” The company’s business, she said, is moving in the right direction.

“We feel good about the progress we’re making,” Ms. Hood said.

After a recent string of disappointing quarters, investors were pleased on Thursday. The company’s earnings of 62 cents a share exceeded analysts’ expectations of 54 cents a share, according to an average of estimates by Thomson Reuters. Revenue also exceeded expectations.

The positive response from Wall Street was also partly a result of a change in how the company reports its earnings, a shift that more clearly accentuates how its corporate software business is outdoing its consumer business. Microsoft said it made the change to its earnings report to reflect the restructuring of the company that is under way.

But that change also helped to highlight the differences between the two sides of the company.

And Barbara Coffey, an analyst at S&P Capital IQ, said that perceptions of Microsoft were unlikely to change greatly until the company reveals who its next leader will be.

“We’re all still waiting for news of who is going to be the new C.E.O. and where we go from here,” Ms. Coffey said. “We’re still in a holding pattern.”