NetApp, which endured a body blow last year when it lost a bidding battle against storage market leader EMC for the ownership of Data Domain, has forged ahead nicely despite the setback and is piling up splendid profits.
The Sunnyvale, Calif. storage maker revealed May 26 that its quarterly profit more than doubled over its year-old report. During its Q4, NetApp’s revenue increased to $1.17 billion, blatantly out-performing the Wall Street consensus estimate of $1.08 billion.
Stockholders earned 40 cents per share, nearly 20 cents better than they received in the 2009 fourth quarter. The income adjustment was 50 cents per share, which beat the Street by a substantial 6 cents.
CEO Tom Georgens and his happy crew [NetApp is regularly listed among the nation’s best companies to work for] credited the snappy earnings report to the fact that the industry trends are basically coming around to what NetApp has to offer: intelligent storage hardware and software that scales, is efficient, and is easy to use.
EMC also turned in a solid report a couple of weeks ago, and IBM and HP are said to also be selling well their storage wares. Sweet start for storage business in A.D. 2010.