VMWare (VMW) Beats, Guides Up - Sending Shares Up 11% in After Hours Trading

Lots of "better than expected reports" tonight - IBM, CSX, INTC, WYNN, et al.  VMWare (VMW) is the high beta name of the night though, with a 11% rally in after hours after both beating on the top and bottom line on the quarter, and guiding up substantially.  It has been a strange year for this once high flier as the stock has struggled; then again it's been trading at 45-55xish forward estimates for quite a while.

• The company said it earned 29 cents a share, a dime ahead of its year-ago profit, on revenue of $834.7 million, up from $633.5 million. On a non-GAAP basis, it would have earned 48 cents a share.  License revenue jumped 34 percent to $419 million, while service revenue rose 32 percent to $424.7 million.
• Analysts were expecting the firm to earn 42 cents a share on revenue of $815.3 million.
• VMWare also guided for second-quarter revenue of $860 million to $880 million, easily beating the $845.1 million analysts had forecast. 
• The company also said it expected its non-GAAP operating margin for 2011 to "expand slightly" from 2010. Three months ago Chief Financial Officer Mark Peek said the company expected "little if any margin expansion in 2011".   

Some analyst comments via Bloomberg:

• Clients are using VMware software to turn more of their servers -- computers used to run websites and networks -- into multitasking machines that can operate several different applications, said Brian Freed, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities Inc. The company has been ramping up new ventures, including entering security and storage, investing in research and development and increasing its headcount, he said.  
• “They released 18 new products last year, and here we are almost six months later,” Robert Breza, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said in an interview. “You're starting to see the new products penetrate the customer base.”

Full report here.

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