Microsoft (MSFT) has notably released its financial report for the past quarter. The 3Trn Hi-Tech behemoth earned $62 billion ($2.93 per share) – that's a +18% increase over the same period last fiscal year, as overall cloud revenue rose 24% YoY to $33.7 billion. Azure growth during the period was 30%, or 28% in USD terms and above the company's previous guidance. Net income totaled $22 billion (+33%) and earnings per share were about $3 (+33%).

The Intelligent Cloud segment, which includes Azure, SQL Server, Windows Server and Nuance, generated $25.9B in sales for the period, also above the previous forecast of $25.1B to $25.4 billion. More Personal Computing division’s figures included the recently consolidated gaming giant Activision Group (finally acquired for $75.5 billion), Windows Surface and Xbox, which generated $16.9 billion in sales, reaching the high end of the previous guidance of $16.5 billion to $16.9 billion.

Productivity and Business Processes revenue, which includes Office, LinkedIn and Dynamics, rose 13% to $19.2 billion. Microsoft returned almost $8.5 billion to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividends.

That's a powerful report. Even though the first knee jerk reaction was rather muted, many stock brokers and banks, including JPMorgan (JPM) rushed to upgrade their MSFT target prices, arguably waiting for the company's $4 trillion capitalization.