Storage management specialist Veritas Software Corp has reported first-quarter net income up 50% at $13.6m. Earnings per share of $0.26 beat the First Call consensus by $0.02. The Mountain View, California-based company saw revenue rise 84% to $71.9m. License revenue increased 82% to $55.8m and the OEM business brought in $15.1m, or 27% of that total.
That strength is likely to continue, says analyst Wendell Laidley at Credit Suisse First Boston, additional agreements, notably one with Hewlett-Packard Co, begin roll-out in scale. Laidley says that particularly robust demand came from e-commerce vendors, such as eBay Inc, Amazon.com Inc America Online Inc and E*Trade Group Inc, which collectively accounted for 15% to 20% of revenue for the quarter, up from just 5% a year ago. First quarter operating margin expanded to 27%.
The company also said it expects its registration statement with respect to the Seagate Software NSMG and TeleBackup Systems mergers to become effective within the next few days, and to hold its special shareholder meeting to approve the transactions in mid-May.
