News
VMware Has Strong Financial Q3
The company shows strength in software-defined computing and the cloud.
The VMware earnings train keeps chugging along.
The Dell-owned virtualization giant beat analyst expectations with third-quarter revenues of $1.98 billion, a year-over-year increase of 11 percent. License revenue was up 14 percent, to $785 million, while non-GAAP net income for the quarter was $553 million, or $1.34 per share. That represented a 17 percent increase per share over the third quarter of 2016.
Analysts were expecting revenues of $1.96 billion, and earnings of $1.27 per share, for the quarter that ended Oct. 31.
The news pleased VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger. In a press release, he said: "… we are excited about the new products and services we have introduced this past quarter demonstrating our commitment to innovation and solving complex customer problems… our strategy continues to resonate with customers as they embrace and leverage our broad portfolio of products and services."
One point of special interest is VMware's strength in the surging hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) space. VMware has spent a tremendous amount of effort in building out its software-defined offerings, including NSX and vSAN, its software-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined storage (SDS) stacks, respectively, that are crucial pillars of HCI.
In the press release, VMware pointed out an important trend for vSAN: "According to IDC's 2Q2017 Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, VMware, based on sales of hyperconverged solutions running VMware vSAN, was the largest hyperconverged infrastructure software vendor during the first half of calendar year 2017."
Those figures followed a similarly strong Q2, which had revenues of $1.9 billion. Non-GAAP net income was $489 million, or $1.19 per share, continuing a string of solid financial quarters that shows no immediate signs of slowing.
Given these rosy numbers, one gets the feeling that it will be a cheery Christmas season around the VMware offices this year.
About the Author
Keith Ward is the editor in chief of Virtualization & Cloud Review. Follow him on Twitter @VirtReviewKeith.