Although last year's collapse of Minnesota's Interstate 35W bridge into the Mississippi River spurred calls for better bridge repairs, two-thirds of heavily used but deficient bridges in the U.S. have not had repairs beyond routine maintenance. "The Minneapolis incident obviously caused people to stand up and take notice, but I think it got dwarfed by the bad economic news," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said. New York Times, The (07/31) // SmartBrief

Florida has agreed to pay $224 million to Berkshire Hathaway so the state's Hurricane Catastrophe Fund can borrow up to $4 billion if it needs the money to cover hurricane losses. Gov. Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink cited a tight credit market as reason for the payment. "We had an enormous amount of difficulty in placing that $625 million this summer at a pretty pricey rate," Sink said. "I guess that just gave me a great deal... // SmartBrief

A jargon-free document that explains the features and costs of annuities is being piloted. The 2.5-pagef text is aimed at helping consumers "make apples-to-apples comparisons" and was developed by the American Council of Life Insurers and the National Association for Variable Annuities. The groups have given their disclosure forms to the NAIC, which created its own model disclosure adopted by at least 11 states. Wall Street Journal, The... // SmartBrief

Oregon's Coventry Health Care had applied PPO discounts to physicians who treated worker's compensation patients. The state's Worker's Compensation Division eventually told Coventry it had to pay what physicians billed. Coventry said if it had to, it would need to move out of state. Coventry's insurer, Liberty Northwest, called upon regulators to allow the discount and, with no public hearings and in great haste, the state did just that.... // SmartBrief

RushPRnews.com (Enlarge photo)

Fastest annual revenue growth since 1999 fuels 32% increase in earnings per share.

REDMOND, Wash.(RUSHPRNEWS) - July 23, 2008 - Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $15.84 billion for the fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30, 2008, an 18% increase over the same period of the prior year. Operating income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $5.68 billion and $0.46, representing growth of 42% and 48%, respectively, over the... // RushPRnews.com

While it did have help from other pieces of hardware and services, the 360 led the way to a $426 million profit for Microsoft's Entertainment €™s video game and entertainment business was profitable for the first time in its history for the fiscal year ended June 30, the company said today.

The Entertainment €” both free and paid — and Microsoft and its partners are selling 7.7 games for each console sold. Research and... // Ve3d.com

IT PRO (Enlarge photo)

Microsoft announced yesterday its results for the fiscal fourth quarter ending 30 June 2008 with earnings of $22.49 billion (£11.26 billion) from revenue of $60.42 billion (£30.27 billion).

This represents yearly growth of 21 per cent over the same period last year and comes despite having to write off $1.1 billion (£55o billion) in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2007 for increasing warranty coverage on the companys Xbox 360 games console, which suffered widely from overheating failure.

Delivering $60 billion in annual revenue is an outstanding accomplishment and a testament to the powerful combination of great technology solutions and strong execution by our partners and global sales and... // IT PRO

The company also provided financial details of its offer to buy Yahoo's search business including a lump payment of $1 billion, a stock investment and on-going revenue sharing. (Read Editor Julie Bort's take on the revenue report. )

[ Keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News , or subscribe to the Today's Headlines newsletter . ]

The fiscal 2008 revenue gain was an 18 percent increase over fiscal 2007, but it was with net income where the software giant showed a big increase from $14 billion in 2007 to $17.6 billion in 2008.

Microsoft also reported fiscal fourth quarter revenue of $15.84 billion, which was an 18 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2007.

Microsoft's fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30.

Chris Liddel, Microsoft's CFO, also took time to make... // InfoWorld

Microsoft has announced it has topped US$60 billion in yearly revenue for the first time in its history and posted a 25 per cent year-over-year gain in net income for its fiscal year 2008.

The company also provided financial details of its offer to buy Yahoo's search business including a lump payment of $1 billion, a stock investment and on-going revenue sharing.

The fiscal 2008 revenue gain was an 18 per cent increase over fiscal 2007, but it was with net income where the software giant showed a big increase from $14 billion in 2007 to $17.6 billion in 2008.

Microsoft also reported fiscal fourth quarter revenue of $15.84 billion, which was an 18 per cent increase over the fourth quarter of 2007.

Microsoft's fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30.

Chris Liddel, Microsoft's CFO, also... // PC Advisor

Microsoft Thursday announced it has topped US$60 billion in yearly revenue for the first time in its history and posted a 25 percent year-over-year gain in net income for its fiscal year 2008.

The company also provided financial details of its offer to buy Yahoo's search business including a lump payment of US$1 billion, a stock investment and on-going revenue sharing.

The fiscal 2008 revenue gain was an 18 percent increase over fiscal 2007, but it was with net income where the software giant showed a big increase from US$14 billion in 2007 to $17.6 billion in 2008.

Microsoft also reported fiscal fourth quarter revenue of US$15.84 billion, which was an 18 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2007.

Microsoft's fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30.

Chris Liddel, Microsoft's... // Computerworld Australia

For the fiscal fourth quarter that ended June 30, 2008, Microsoft Corp. announced $15.84 billion of revenue, an 18 percent increase over the same period last year and $60.42 billion of revenue for the fiscal year, also an 18 percent increase from the end of fiscal year 2007.

The success that Microsoft had in its financial year 2008 represented the company's fastest annual revenue growth in almost a decade.

Increased Windows Server and SQL Server revenue as well as increased licensing of the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista and increased Xbox 360 sales attributed to Microsoft's revenue success during the fiscal fourth quarter and the full fiscal year.

"We had a strong finish in the fourth quarter, which capped off an impressive year for the company," said Chris Liddell,... // eChannelLine

REDMOND, Wash. , July 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $15.84 billion for the fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30, 2008 , an 18% increase over the same period of the prior year. Operating income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $5.68 billion and $0.46 , representing growth of 42% and 48%, respectively, over the same period of the prior year.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO )

For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2008 , Microsoft announced revenue of $60.42 billion , an 18% increase over the prior year. Operating income and diluted earnings per share for the year were $22.49 billion and $1.87 , representing yearly growth of 21% and 32%, respectively.

The growth rates for operating income and diluted... // Consumer Electronics Net