Great news. At the close of the fiscal quarter, Apple has found its profits $70 million in excess of its estimates, sitting at $320 million.

This is Apple’s best quarter. Ever. Read about it: Apple Tops Its Quarterly Earnings Record.

One thing that is very encouraging about this is to see that the iPod is not the hero that saved the ailing team here. The iPod had a significant share, as expected, but it was just a team player on Apple’s championship team.

Other key players: Mac OS X 10.4 and Mac sales. Sure, we like it when the team keeps winning, even when these players were on the bench, but now that they’re back in the game–and exercising a killer instinct–the game is so sweet to see.

Mac OS X 10.4 was the best-selling software release in the company’s history; Mac sales experienced a 35% increase over last year; iPod sales had a “record quarter” for the ninth time in a row. When all the key players score triple-doubles, the fans just go wild.

And the timing couldn’t be more perfect, since Apple’s sales my go into slight hibernation as the world awaits the first x86-based Mac. But that’s okay–Apple is ready.

When you’re this big, who cares about almost a billion dollars?

It was announced recently that IBM and Microsoft settled in their antitrust case against Microsoft which resulted in $775 million down the tubes for Microsoft, and another $75 million in lost product sales in the form of credit toward IBM. Wow, that is a lot of money.

But what do they care? That doesn’t even equate to a stumble for Microsoft. Meanwhile, Microsoft is looking to enter the movie biz with a movie about Halo, their premiere game series for the XBox. Besides preparing to make Halo: The Movie, they’ve announced plans to release Halo 3 around the time Sony will be releasing PlayStation 3. After all, you wouldn’t want your competition to ever have a sunny day when they release their reply to Microsoft’s new XBox soon to be released.