Microsoft's server division posted an 18 percent rise in sales, compared with a forecast of 9 percent. ``Our server business is kind of like the New England Patriots,'' Connors said. ``They just don't lose.'' Sales of Microsoft's Office word-processing and e-mail program, the company's second-biggest unit, fell 3 percent from a year ago when sales surged after the release of the Office 2003 programs. Windows for PCs, the biggest and most profitable unit, rose 5.3 percent, Microsoft said, compared with 21 percent in the year-ago quarter. Total sales grew at about a third of the 19 percent rise in the same time last year. ``It looks like a pretty solid quarter,'' said Alan Davis, an analyst at Seattle-based McAdams Wright Ragen, which manages $2 billion, including Microsoft shares. ``It looks like the big driver, as it has been over the past number of quarters, is the server software business.''