IBM's Q2 strongest revenue growth in 6 years
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IBM's chairman, CEO and president, Sam Palmisano, declared the vendor's second-quarter fiscal 2007 financial results the company's best growth performance in six years.
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IBM  on Thursday forecast 2008 earnings well ahead of Wall Street expectations after results showing a strong international performance, and its shares rose 5 percent.
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(InfoWorld) - Oracle reported another strong financial quarter on Monday, posting $4.2 billion in revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2007, results that beat analysts estimates by 1 percent. However, there were signs in its software revenue results that the company's growth spurt on the strength of acquisitions of PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems could be coming to a halt. The company's revenue in the same period of last year was $3.39 billion. While Oracle's most recent quarterly revenue was slightly higher than the $4.15 billion analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected the vendor to earn, earnings per share, which were $0.22, met their expectations. Net income was $1.17 billion, a 20 percent growth over the $972 million reported in the same quarter of last year. Analysts were keeping a keen eye on software license revenue during the quarter, and results show that their concern that Oracle's revenue surge is the result of acquisitions, and not strength in its own core software business, could be valid. Oracle's software revenue, which was $3.21 billion, grew 19 percent year over year, coming in on the low end of the company's growth expectations of 19 percent to 21 percent. Moreover, new software license revenue for the quarter was $1.21 billion, an increase of only 14 percent over the same period last year when the company had predicted an increase of 15 percent to 20 percent. Software license update and product support revenue came in stronger, at $2.01 billion, an increase of 25 percent over the same period last year. Still, analysts likely will see Oracle's software license revenue results as a sign of weakness for the vendor. In a statement, Oracle maintained its customary bravado, attributing its results to strong sales in all three of its core software areas -- applications, middleware and database. A statement from Oracle President Charles Phillips on second quarter results made claims that Oracle continues to steal market share from rivals in these areas. On a conference call to discuss results on Monday, Oracle President and Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz acknowledged that Oracle missed its objective for software revenue growth in the quarter. She attributed this misstep to the company failing to execute on key deals that should have closed in the quarter but did not. She said to alleviate the execution problem going forward, Oracle will focus on letting salespeople work in the field rather than spend time engaged in sales meetings and other activities that don't lend themselves to deal-closing. "We think additional focus ... and better pipeline management should mean better results," Catz said. Overall, executives on the call seemed to have a lot of faith in Oracle's backlog of unfinished sales deals, which Catz said is very big, to contribute to Oracle's success in the remainder of 2007. Larry Ellison, Oracle's chief executive officer, noted that a good portion of the deals in the pipeline are wins in vertical markets where Oracle has not traditionally played. He said retail has been a key growth area for the company, claiming that eight of the 10 largest retailers in North America now use Oracle's retail applications, whereas only one uses rival SAP AG's. Ellison said growth in the retail sector will begin to have a noticeable effect on Oracle's software revenue. "Retail will actually move the needle," he said. Ellison also said Oracle plans to continue its "dual strategy" of growing the company through both internal development and acquisition, a comment that may hint the company is eyeing more purchases to build out its massive software and applications portfolio. Â
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Oracle Corp.  on Thursday  posted a higher quarterly profit, helped by  stronger-than-expected new software license revenue.
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Global sales of servers, powerful computers used by large companies, rose 7.7 percent in the second quarter to $11.55 billion (6.4 billion pounds) as demand for information technology remained strong after a three-year downturn
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Microsoft Corp.'s quarterly earnings rose 11 percent over the comparable quarter last year, with strongest growth in sales of server software.
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Microsoft beat Wall Street expectations for both revenue and EPS (earnings per share) for its fiscal 2008 second quarter, attributing its strong quarter to sales of core client products, such as Windows Vista and Office 2007, as well as Exchange and SharePoint server software.For the quarter ended Dec. 31, Microsoft reported revenue of $16.37 billion, an increase of 30 percent year over year and a number that solidly beat the $15.95 billion in revenue that Thomson Financial analysts had estimated. Last year for the same period, Microsoft reported $12.54 billion in revenue.Diluted earnings per share were $0.50, an increase of 92 percent over the $0.27 in EPS reported last year, and $0.04 higher than Thomson Financial estimates of $0.46. Operating income for the quarter was $6.48 billion, an increase of 92 percent from the $3.47 billion reported for the same period last year.Microsoft&#39;s year-over-year percentage growth is higher than normal due to a deferral of $1.64 billion in revenue and operating income, as well as $0.11 of diluted earnings per share from the second to the third quarter of fiscal 2007. This deferred revenue contributed to the higher-than-average second-quarter percentage growth. Without these deferrals, second-quarter growth rates for revenue, operating income and earnings per share would be 15 percent, 27 percent and 32 percent, respectively, for the quarter reported Thursday.Ahead of Microsoft&#39;s announcement, analysts had expected the company to report a strong quarter even among economic uncertainty and fears that the U.S. economy is entering a recession.Microsoft&#39;s client business, on sales of Windows Vista, was especially strong in the quarter, with $4.34 billion in revenue compared to $2.59 billion in revenue a year ago. According to Microsoft, its client business has grown 20 percent on average since Windows Vista was made available nearly a year ago, and the company believes Vista began hitting its stride for adoption among customers and partners in the second quarter. According to Microsoft, it has sold more than 100 million licenses for Vista.Looking ahead to the next quarter, which ends March 31, Microsoft said Thursday that it expects revenue in the range of $14.3 billion to $14.6 billion; operating income in the range of $5.6 billion to $5.7 billion; and diluted earnings per share in the range of $0.43 to $0.45.For the full fiscal year ending June 30, Microsoft expects revenue in the range of $59.9 billion to $60.5 billion; operating income in the range of $24.2 billion to $24.4 billion; and diluted EPS in the range of $1.85 to $1.88.
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IBMâs revenue from India grew by 37 percent last year, mainly on Indiaâs strong economic growth, including in industrial production.
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Investor's Business Daily - 1 Halting a recent tech slide, Big Blue preannounced that profit rose 24% to $2.80 a share ex items, 20 cents above views. A weak dollar helped lift IBM's revenue   10% to $28.9 bil. But IBM was mum on U.S. results. Meanwhile, German software giant SAP   said Q4 sales rose 10%, beating views. IBM shares rose 5% and SAP 4%.
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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- IBM said on Monday that third-quarter profit, excluding a pension-related charge, rose 12 percent from a year ago and slightly beat expectations, as the world&#39;s largest computer company boosted sales of everything from servers to
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InfoWorld - IBM Corp. expects about $1 billion in revenue from India, as the company's hardware and services business in the local market soars.
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Oracle logged major gains in new license revenue for applications, which rose by 63%, and for database and middleware products, which saw a 28% increase.
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Computer company IBM releases market-beating sales and profit figures, boosted by foreign demand.
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IBM Corp. expects about $1 billion in revenue from India, as the company&#39;s hardware and services business in the local market soars.
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IBM reported strong fourth-quarter earnings on Monday, beating analysts' expectations. It plans to provide its full earnings report later this week.
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Factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew at 6.9 percent year over year to 11.5 billion US dollars in the second quarter of 2004, according to a report released Friday by IDC.
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The software company's stock rises on improved second-quarter numbers.