earnings

Nvidia's fortunes took a turn for the worse during the quarter, as slowing sales plus faulty products never add up to anything good.

The company announced Wednesday that revenue and gross margins for its second quarter will come in below its own projections, blaming a delay in the ramp of a new product, price cuts prompted by competitive pressures, and a general economic malaise. Analysts were expecting revenue of around $1.1 billion, but revenue now will be just $875 million to $900 million for its second quarter, which ends on July 27.

And then on top of that, … Read more

Microsoft is close to buying search engine Powerset for $100 million or more, according to technology Web site VentureBeat.

VentureBeat said the deal for the Silicon Valley company, which specializes in semantic, or natural-language search, is due to be announced next month.

Microsoft and Powerset both declined to comment on the report.

The deal could help Microsoft in the wake of its failed Yahoo bid, although sources say Microsoft is also mulling over whether to offer a new bid for Yahoo's search engine, amid urging from Yahoo shareholders.

Rumors that Microsoft was interested in Powerset have been swirling for … Read more

Red Hat continues to impress with strong financial performance, delivering an impressive Q1 2009. Not bad when you consider the company gives away its products for free.

Red Hat pulled in $156.6 million in its Q1 (fiscal year 2009), a 32 percent increase over Q1 2008 and 11 percent growth over Q4 2008. Red Hat's operating income was also up 33 percent over the same quarter in 2008. But it's perhaps the deferred revenue (i.e., subscriptions and other services booked but not yet recognizable as revenue because they have yet to be delivered) that is most impressive: Up 36 percent to $491.8 million.

Clearly, Red Hat is doing something right. Many things right, in fact.

I asked the company specifically about JBoss performance, as rumors have swirled that JBoss has lagged under Red Hat's guidance. Quite the opposite. While there were initial hiccups in bringing the JBoss brand under the Red Hat umbrella, the unit is firing on all cylinders now, contributing a healthy amount to the Red Hat top and bottom lines. Red Hat wouldn't give specific numbers, but I heard the JBoss confidence from a range of different sources within Red Hat.

What about the cost side of the equation? Here there is perhaps even more cause for optimism, but also a creeping concern.… Read more

Software licensing drove a healthy increase in revenue for Oracle during its fourth quarter.

For the quarter, which ended May 31, the enterprise software giant reported revenue of $7.24 billion, up 24 percent from the same period a year earlier. During that three-month period, revenue from new software licenses rose 27 percent to $3.14 billion, and revenue from software license updates and product support rose 25 percent to $2.83 billion.

Revenue from services also was on the increase, though not by quite as much. It was up 18 percent, to $1.26 billion.

Oracle said that its … Read more

This blog has been updated with Dell executive and analyst comments.

It's not a blow-out quarter, but Dell investors will likely be pleasantly surprised.

The Round Rock, Texas, PC maker reported its first-quarter earnings Thursday, with revenue of $16 billion, a 9 percent improvement from a year ago, and earnings of 38 cents per share, a 12 percent increase.

Analysts were expecting earnings of 34 cents per share and revenue of $15.4 billion to $16.2 billion. In after-hours trading Thursday, shares of Dell were up 7.5 percent.

Following a turbulent 2007, Thursday's results were a … Read more

Yes, Novell has a ways to go to catch up with Red Hat, but with yet another strong quarter it's becoming increasingly clear that the enterprise Linux market is a two-horse race again. Importantly, Novell is competing much more strongly without backup from Microsoft.

Novell saw its Linux business top $29 million in its second fiscal quarter of 2008 ($30 million in total Open Platform Solutions revenue), up 31 percent over the same period a year ago, with other business units also seeing healthy growth. Only its Workgroup business unit continues to founder, down 1 percent in the period that ended April 30.

More importantly (to me), I asked Justin Steinman, Novell's director of Marketing for Linux and Open Platforms, how much of this is attributable to Novell's partnership with Microsoft. It turns out that Novell is starting to really grow its Linux business on its own, though it still looks to Microsoft as a strong partner to drive interoperability:

Novell's core Linux business is growing. By "core," I mean that our non-Microsoft- related Linux business is growing. These are Suse Linux Enterprise Server subscriptions sold directly by the Novell sales force or by our channel partners, without any Microsoft certificates or Microsoft salespeople involved.… Read more

Strong sales in emerging markets boosted Hewlett-Packard's second-quarter earnings to $2.2 billion, or 87 cents a share, up 24 percent from a year earlier.

Revenue for the quarter rose 11 percent to $28.3 billion, the company said Tuesday.

Those figures beat analyst estimates of earnings per share of 85 cents and revenue of $28.1 billion, according to Thomson First Call.

Earnings excluding one-time items were $2.1 billion, or 80 cents a share.

HP forecast revenue for the third quarter to be about $27.3 billion to $27.4 billion and earnings per share excluding items … Read more

Weighed down by its financial unit, Sony posted a $45 million loss for its fourth quarter earnings Wednesday.

Analysts were expecting an average estimated profit of $260 million for the quarter.

Revenue for Sony's video game unit, which competes head-to-head with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii, grew by 26 percent in the past year based on better sales of the PlayStation 3 console.

Still, the bright point of the company's quarterly report was its electronics business. Revenue was up 9 percent due to increased sales of its digital cameras, video cameras, and notebook PCs.

The … Read more

Video game giant Electronic Arts on Tuesday posted fourth-quarter revenues that beat Wall Street expectations and looked ahead to fiscal 2009, when it expects to release 15 new games.

Net revenue for the quarter was $1.127 billion, up 84 percent as compared with $613 million for the prior year, the company said. Net loss for the quarter was $94 million, widening from a net loss of $25 million for the prior year.

"On balance, we're very pleased with our revenue growth, but not yet happy with our profit margins," EA CEO John Riccitiello said in a … Read more