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Storage Shades Sun's Q4

Sun reported its third consecutive quarter of profitability with its fourth quarter results last night, but storage continues to be a problem for the vendor. (See Sun Exceeds Profit Target, Sun Slips on Storage, Sun Returns to Profitability, and Storage Slows Down Sun.)

Sun's fourth quarter revenues were $3.85 billion, up from $3.83 billion in the same period last year, and just above analyst estimates of $3.84 billion. For the full year, the company reported revenues of $13.873 billion, a 6 percent increase on the previous year, and in line with analyst estimates.

Sun reported fourth quarter net income of $329 million, or 9 cents per share, compared to a loss of $301 and 9 cents per share in the same quarter last year. For the full year, Sun reported net income of $473 million, or 13 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $864 million, or 25 cents per share, in 2006.

Despite beating his profit targets, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz admitted in a conference call last night that there is still plenty of room for improvement. "Our results reflect weaknesses in the U.S. and in storage."

Revenues from Sun's data center division, which includes server and storage technologies, were $639 million in the fourth quarter, down 10.4 percent on the same period last year. Schwartz blamed the OEM arena for much of this shortfall. "Our OEM offerings were not as strong as we would like," he said. "We know that we have got some work to do there."

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