After a very dull year in 1992-93, Sun Microsystems Inc has been back on a sustained growth tack, and net profits for its fiscal third quarter soared 87% to $107.5m, an all-time record, on sales up 26% at $1,505m. Network computing is booming and we are a pure play in this market. The performance we are seeing in all our businesses, including chips, systems, software, service and aftermarketing, is exceeding our expectations, a jubilant Scott McNealy, chief executive, commented. Sun’s R & D machine keeps cranking out new products. In fact, the vast majority of our products shipped in the last quarter are less than one year old. We’ve leveraged existing Sun strengths to grow into new markets such as personal computer administration, the Internet, and interactive multimedia. Products like Solstice will keep us at the forefront of system and network management, and we’re beginning to penetrate new markets, such as interactive services, by our alliance with Thomson Consumer Electronics. Chief financial officer Michael Lehman noted that Sun has now delivered four quarters in a row of outstanding financial and operating results, and that during the quarter, demand was particularly strong for multiprocessing desktops and high-end servers, giving a gross margin percentage significantly higher than in recent quarters and explaining the jump in net profit. The company shipped more than 78,000 computer systems from its Sun Microsystems Computer Corp hardware division during the quarter, representing a 16% jump on the year-ago period, Lehman told Reuters. He noted accelerated demand, or record demand for Sun’s line of Unix workstations, notably Sparcstation-20 and -5.
