CHART OF THE DAY: Microsoft's Online Money Pit Gets A Little Bit Smaller

For the longest time, Microsoft's online division has posted gigantic losses. And for the longest time, we've run the chart below which documents those losses.

Well, we might not be able to run this chart for much longer. It looks like Microsoft is finally cleaning up the mess that it is its online business. Last quarter it lost $283 million. That sounds bad, but it's better than the $500-$700+ million losses Microsoft had been posting.

Bill Koefoed, the outgoing manager of investor relations, explained the improvement in the divisions performance to us saying, "Revenue is up 15%, we're managing expenses, we're spending less on traffic acquisition costs, and less on operating expenses."

Yes, it's still negative, but the momentum is clearly in the right direction.