EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) saw quarterly gains in its just-reported Q3 numbers, as profit spiked 77% on increasing sales of data storage hardware and software. EMC timed the sale of its past ownership stake in hot company VMWare in the quarter as well, which added significantly to the company's profit figure for the quarter.Net income for the Q3 (July-September) period was reported at $492.9 million ($0.23 per share), a jump over last year's Q3 figure of $283.7 million ($0.13 per share). From July to September, EMC's revenue was up sharply from the year-ago quarter's $2.82 billion, landing at $3.29 billion for the quarter. Expectations were at $3.12 billion, so EMC can rest easy (well, for a week or so) knowing it beat analyst estimates.
For the quarter, EMC raked in over $115 million selling its six million share stake in VMWare to Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), so EMC's real gain for the quarter (minus that sale) stood at $377.8 million -- still a very handsome number. In addressing results for the quarter, the company said that it will be boosting its stock buyback total for 2007 to $2 billion, nearly double the prior commitment of $1 billion.
As of today, the company has returned over $1 billion to shareholders while buying back 73 million EMC shares. CFO David Goulden stated that the company is on track to exceed annual guidance back from January 2007 based on EMC's strong performance this year so far. With EMC still owning 86% of VMWare, it's sitting pretty with that cash cow at this time.
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