The three-month period ending September 30th – which Microsoft almost inexplicably refers to as the first quarter of its 2011 fiscal year – was good to the company.  Microsoft shared its earnings report this afternoon, and it beat analysts’ estimates by a large margin.

The consensus estimate regarding revenue, for example, was $15.8 billion.  Microsoft reported $16.2 billion, instead.  Then, in terms of earnings per share, Microsoft was able to report $0.62 instead of $0.55.

As for how Bing did, Microsoft said in a statement, "For yet another quarter, Bing continued to grow market share, while achieving major milestones in implementing Microsoft’s partnership with Yahoo."

Unfortunately for the company, the losses suffered by the Online Services Division did increase from $477 million to $560 million on a year-over-year basis.

Still, Peter Klein, Microsoft’s CFO, said, "This was an exceptional quarter, combining solid enterprise growth and continued strong consumer demand for Office 2010, Windows 7, and Xbox 360 consoles and games.  Our ability to grow revenue while continuing to control costs allowed us to deliver another quarter of year-over-year margin expansion."

Microsoft’s stock is now up 3.31 percent in after-hours trading.