The cloud has been a solid source of income for Microsoft in recent times, and while the company is still in the middle of a huge transition, the future is looking bright under recently appointed CEO Satya Nadella. Today, Microsoft released its earnings for the first fiscal 2015 quarter, with the main takeaway being the growth of its Devices and Consumer revenue by 47 percent, to $10.96 billion, and a total of $23.20 billion in overall revenue, a 25 percent increase compared to the same period last year. In other words, business is superb over in Redmond. Part of the reason for this is how successful its productivity suite, Office 365, has been — there are now over 7 million subscribers to the Home and Personal software. What’s more, Microsoft revealed that the Surface Pro 3 drove the momentum of its Surface line to a revenue amount of $908 million; meanwhile, 2.4 million Xbox units were sold during the quarter, though the company didn’t specify how many of those were for its newest console, the Xbox One. Developing… [Image credit: Michael Kappel/Flickr] Filed under: Desktops , Laptops , Tablets , Software , Microsoft Comments

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Microsoft is doing great, and so are Surface Pro 3 and Office 365

Ever heard of Electronics for Imaging? We hadn’t either until this morning, but it’s apparently a multimillion dollar, multinational, public corporation based out of Fremont, California. And the United States Department of Labor just caught EFI red-handed in an investigation, which found that “about eight employees” were flown in from India to work 120-hour weeks for $1.21 per hour. EFI apparently thought it was okay to pay the employees the same wages they’d be paid in India (in Indian rupees). Here’s the unbelievably crazy sounding quote EFI gave to NBC ‘s Bay Area affiliate : “We unintentionally overlooked laws that require even foreign employees to be paid based on local US standards.” Just so we’re clear: is there anyone reading this who doesn’t know that any person working in the United States is legally required to be compensated according to United States laws? Alberto Raymond, an assistant district director with the US Department of Labor told NBC, “It is certainly outrageous and unacceptable for employers here in Silicon Valley to bring workers and pay less than the minimum wage.” And that applies to EFI especially, which posted just shy of $200 million in revenue in its last financial quarter. EFI is publicly traded on the NASDAQ exchange, and the company’s in the business of computer peripherals (mainly printer-based stuff). The eight employees are being paid $40, 000 in owed wages; they were reportedly installing computer systems at the company’s headquarters. EFI was charged $3, 500 — yes, seriously — for being at fault. [Image credit: Shutterstock] Filed under: Misc Comments Source: NBC Bay Area

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Bay Area tech company caught paying imported workers $1.21 per hour