Microsoft has had an exciting couple of weeks, especially with its latest buzzworthy announcement of the Surface tablet. The company announced its Q4 earnings for fiscal year 2012 today, reporting news not as exciting, depending how you look at it. It posted just $192M in operating income before taxes and its first ever loss ($492M) due to the writedown the company took because of its failed aQuantive acquisition. It did, however, report a record fourth quarter revenue of $18.06 billion.

The writedown explains the $492 million loss, which was a $0.06 loss per share, in spite of the record revenue. Revenue this quarter was $18.1 billion, up four percent year over year, driven primarily by business demand for Microsoft’s desktop and infrastructure offerings.

 For Microsoft’s fiscal year 2012, the company’s revenue, operating income, and earnings per share were $73.72 billion, $21.76 billion and $2.00 per share. Adjusting for the goodwill impairment charge and deferred revenue, non-GAAP fiscal year 2012 revenue, operating income and earnings per share were $74.26 billion, $28.50 billion and $2.78 per share, which represented increases of six percent, five percent and five percent, respectively, over adjusted non-GAAP fiscal year 2011 figures.

Excluding the impact of those two items, revenue would have been $18.59 billion and earnings per share would have been $0.73. The consensus from the polled analysts was for $0.62 earnings per share in the fourth quarter.

“We delivered record fourth quarter and annual revenue, and we’re fast approaching the most exciting launch season in Microsoft history,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft in a canned statement. “Over the coming year, we’ll release the next versions of Windows, Office, Windows Server, Windows Phone, and many other products and services that will drive our business forward and provide unprecedented opportunity to our customers and partners.”

Here are the numbers for all of Microsoft’s divisions:

• Windows and Windows Live: $4.15 billion revenue, one percent decrease because of Windows Upgrade Offer deferral (see below)
• Business Division: $6.29 billion revenue, up seven percent
• Server & Tools: $5.09 billion revenue, 13 percent increase
• Online Services: $0.74 billion revenue, eight percent  increase
• Entertainment and Devices: $1.79 billion revenue, 20 percent increase

More details on the report can be found here.