Friday, Jan. 28, 2005 | 9:48 a.m.
SEATTLE -- Strong demand for an alien-fighting video game, Halo 2, and software for computer servers helped Microsoft Corp. beat Wall Street expectations as quarterly earnings more than doubled.
A decrease in stock-based compensation costs also helped.
Boosted by the strong results for its fiscal second quarter, the Redmond-based software giant also raised its earnings forecast for its full fiscal year, which ends in June.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, Microsoft said Thursday that it earned $3.46 billion, or 32 cents per share, compared with earnings of $1.55 billion, or 14 cents per share, in the same period last year.
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