Today's FY15 Q1 financial report from Microsoft, believe it or not, contains a lot of positive news. In fact, Microsoft stock is trading higher in after-hours trading pushing it to the $48 mark for the first time in a long time. Investors are happy over Microsoft's future. The reason for the Wall Street exuberance is many of Microsoft's businesses are doing well, to wit: Bing is up 29%

Office 365 commercial seats up 66%

Consumer licenses up 157%

Total commercial bookings up 10%

Servers up 9%

Azure up 135% Those almost all fall under the new "Intelligent Cloud" grouping with an overall 8 percent growth for $5.9 billion in revenue. An analyst at FBR Capital Markets, Daniel Ives, is quoted by the New York Times as saying that "…the company "hit it out of the park" with its profits. "Cloud is the epicenter of the growth story". The bad news, although hardly surprising is the Lumia line of Windows Phones. Microsoft got pulverized with a 54% decline in phone revenue compared to the same quarter last year. That translates into just 5.8 million Lumias sold last quarter versus 9.3 million the year earlier. Best VPN providers 2020: Learn about ExpressVPN, NordVPN & more The previous quarter's numbers had Microsoft at 8.4 million Lumias sold, which was up for at time from the same period in 2014. Going back even earlier to holiday 2014 and Microsoft peaked at 10.5 million Lumias.

It is not surprising to see the steady drift of declining Lumia sales when you look back at the last year. The Lumia 830 and Lumia 735 did little to woo new customers, and US carriers are abandoning Lumias and Windows Phones as interest – and new devices – wane. Seeing that 5.8 million number puts things in perspective and when combined with losing Mint today and things are dire. Looking forward There are a few ways out of this for Microsoft going forward: Successful launch of the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL that garners renewed interest from consumers

Halo effect from the rest of Microsoft's successes

Universal Windows apps and Windows Bridges stopping the app hemorrhaging A succesful launch of the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL is crucial for a rebound even if to steady things. If those phones are reviewed poorly – and the app-gap will be a factor for reviewers – and if customers treat it like the next BlackBerry or Amazon.com Fire Phone, then Windows Phone as we know may be over.