Microsoft has yet again suffered a disappointing result for the months – April and June . Net profit for the period was $3.1bn (£1.9bn), down by 29% from the same period a year earlier. Revenue came in at $13.1bn, down 17% from a year ago.

“It looked like a pretty tough quarter for Microsoft. The top line was very weak,” said Toan Tran at Morningstar.

The one bright spot was the company’s cost-cutting measures.

“In light of the environment, it was an excellent achievement to deliver over $750m of operational savings compared with the prior year quarter,” said Chris Liddell, Microsoft’s finance chief.

Microsoft makes most of its profit selling the Windows operating system and business software such as Office.

However, demand has been hit by falling sales of PCs as consumers and businesses trim spending.

Microsoft – which became a public company in 1986 – has been looking at ways of cutting costs.

In January, it said it would cut up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months, including 1,400 immediately.

Google is developing an operating system for personal computers in a direct challenge to market leader Microsoft and its Windows system.

Microsoft itself is poised to launch its new operating system, Windows 7, this autumn.

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