Microsoft's Surface turns first profit in 2 years

For the three months ending Sept. 30, MicrosoftMicrosoft recorded $908 million in revenue for the Surface tablet line, an increase of 127% over the same quarter in 2013. The nearly one billion in revenue was a one-quarter record for the Surface, and beat the combined revenue of the previous two quarters. Alles zu Microsoft auf CIO.de

Using information in Microsoft's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as well as data from earlier quarters, Computerworld calculated the quarter's cost of that revenue at $786 million, leaving a gross margin of $122 million. Cost of revenue is the cost to make and sell a product, but excludes expenses such as advertising and R&D.

Microsoft said that the Surface line posted a positive gross margin -- implying that outside estimates of prior losses were correct -- but did not disclose a dollar figure.

According to Computerworld's estimate, the margin was small, about 13.4%. That's more than the average for a Windows personal computer, but less than half or a third of the margins on tablets like AppleApple's iPadiPad. Alles zu Apple auf CIO.de Alles zu iPad auf CIO.de

It was even smaller by the figuring of Jan Dawson, principal analyst at Jackdaw Research, who has also used Microsoft's SEC filings to estimate the Surface's cost of revenue. He pegged the September quarter's cost of revenue at $825 million, the gross margin at $83 million, and the margin rate at just 9.1%.