Symantec Corp president and CEO Gordon Eubanks put the company’s third quarter modest profits and revenue growth down to pent up demand for upgraded products released this quarter and late last quarter, by which he presumably meant a lack of sales until very late on so we should expect to see a bumper fourth quarter. The Cupertino, California development tools and anti-virus king turned in third quarter profits of $13.9m, against losses last time of $36.8m, which included a $37.2m restructuring hit for the Delrina acquisition – now sold on, on revenues that rose 12% to $124.1m. the company has improved its high gross margins by cutting research and development and operating expenses, and launched products including Visual Cafe Pro and Visual Page Java development tools, ACT! 3.0 and WinFax Pro 7.5 in the communications arenas and Norton Internet Email gateway and CrashGuard utilities. The company also said it’s performance over the Christmas season had improved in Europe, which seems to have alluded many of its fellow software companies recently. Net profits for the nine months to December 31 were $17.8m, after a $9.8m restructuring hit, against $47.7m losses the previous year, which included the same $37.2m charge as above, on revenues that were up 4% to $342.5m.
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