A rebound in business and consumer PC spending helped to drive Microsoft’s revenues up 6% to $14.5 billion in its most recent financial quarter.

Sales at the software giant’s operating system division rose 28% to $4.4 billion, thanks to increased shipments of its latest OS, Windows 7. These sales grew 35% on the consumer side and 15% in the enterprise space. “Business customers are beginning to refresh their desktops and the momentum of Windows 7 continues to be strong,” said chief operating officer Kevin Turner.

This effect was counterbalanced by more modest performances in the company’s Server and Tools division, where sales grew 2%, and its Business Software arm, where sales dropped 6%. Clearly, business IT spending has yet to rebound in all categories.

Turner said that the company is seeing "tremendous interest in our market-leading cloud services for business”. The company did not provide specific revenue figures for its cloud-based software platform Azure, however.

Windows 7 has almost single-handedly propped up Microsoft’s financial performances since its release towards the end of last year. After a twenty-year run of consistent growth, the company suffered three consecutive quarters of declining revenues at the height of the global recession.