Veritas Software Corp. had income of $36 million on $366 million in revenue for the third quarter, a huge improvement over the $162 million loss on $340 million in revenue from the same period a year ago.
The numbers also were slightly up from the prior quarters $26 million in income on $365 million in revenue.
“We are pleased with our performance this quarter given the ongoing challenges of reduced IT spending patterns,” said Gary Bloom, chairman, president and CEO of the Mountain View, Calif., data management software maker. “Our results are a reflection of our ability to execute against our business model and how well it aligns with the trends.”
Veritas will probably take in about $377 million in the next quarter, he said. The company is now at 5,620 employees, down 50 from the prior quarter. That will probably increase in the second half of 2003, he said.
On the products front, Veritas will continue to work with partners ranging from startups like Rhapsody Networks Inc. to large but unproven storage players like Cisco Systems Inc., Bloom said. Veritas is also working on a new product, Global Operations Manager, for delivery next year. The status of that product is unknown; it was led by Chief Technology Officer Paul Borrill, who resigned recently and has not been replaced.
Regardless, “we havent seen any real competitive change” in the storage and data management industries, Bloom said.
One competitive change last quarter was the announcement by Microsoft Corp. that it will ship new backup technology in its upcoming Windows .Net Server 2003. Bloom did not field questions from the press.