Commenting on its fiscal first quarter figures (see page five), which saw an 82% slump in net profits on sales up 13%, Sun Microsystems Inc says that the Sun Microsystems Computer Corp subsidiary shipped more than 50,000 systems, a first-quarter record, and an increase of 16% over last year’s first quarter; SunSoft Inc, the operating system subsidiary, distributed 81,000 Unix licences, an all-time high; chief financial officer Kevin Melia While we are not pleased with our earnings, we are very excited about the strong customer demand for our new Sparcstation 10 workstations – the Sparcstation 10 launch is one of our most successful new product introductions ever; once volume shipments began in the last month of the quarter, we set new single-day shipment records; US bookings were at an all-time high, while US revenues incresed 16% over the year-ago quarter; European revenues increased 22%, primarily the result of increased unit shipments but revenues in other geographies were slightly lower than in the prior year, reflecting lack of availability of high-end Sparcstation 10 models during the quarter; gross margins declined, reflecting the impact of higher component costs that are typical at this stage of a product transition of this complexity; fundamentals are excellent – our financial strength is a competitive advantage; we have $1,100m in cash, industry-leading inventory cycle times, a solid balance sheet, and we are confident going into the second quarter, Melia concluded.
