INTERCONNECTS
Sun Q4 sales fall 1.4%
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Announces Additional $1 Billion Share Repurchase Authorization: Sun Microsystems reported results today for its full fiscal year and fourth quarter, which ended June 30, 2008. For the full fiscal year, Sun reported revenues of $13.880 billion, an increase of 0.1 percent over fiscal year 2007. Revenues for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 were $3.780 billion, a decrease of 1.4 percent from $3.835 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007. Total gross margin as a percent of revenues for the full fiscal year was 46.5 percent, an increase of 1.3 percentage points over fiscal year 2007. Gross margin for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 was 44.3 percent, a decrease of 2.9 percentage points from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007. Net income on a GAAP basis for the full fiscal year was $403 million, or $0.49 per share on a diluted basis, as compared with net income of $473 million, or $0.52 per share on a diluted basis, for fiscal year 2007. Net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 was $88 million, or $0.11 per share on a diluted basis, as compared with net income of $329 million, or $0.36 per share on a diluted basis, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007. Non-GAAP net income for the full fiscal year was $1.101 billion, or $1.34 per share on a diluted basis, as compared with non-GAAP net income of $1.003 billion, or $1.11 per share on a diluted basis, for fiscal year 2007. Non-GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 was $275 million, or $0.35 per share on a diluted basis, as compared with non-GAAP net income of $458 million, or $0.50 per share on a diluted basis, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007. Non-GAAP net income excludes purchased-in-process research and development, amortization of acquisition related intangibles, stock-based compensation, restructuring and related impairment of long-lived assets, net gain or loss on equity investments, settlement income and the tax effect of these non-GAAP adjustments. Cash generated from operations for the full fiscal year was $1.3 billion, and the cash and marketable debt securities balance at the end of the year was approximately $3.3 billion. "On a year-over-year basis, we saw significant improvements across a number of key operating metrics ranging from gross margins to non-GAAP earnings per share and cash flow from operations," said Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems. "Despite this progress and strong growth in international geographies, slowing performance in the U.S. impacted top line revenue growth. Looking forward, we remain confident in open source innovation as the accelerant to our growth strategy through increased adoption of our open source offerings - from the OpenSolaris operating system and the MySQL database to the Lustre and ZFS storage systems, the foundation of our open storage platforms." Full Fiscal Year & Fourth Quarter 2008 Highlights: * On an annual basis, Sun improved gross margins by 1.3 percentage points, decreased total R&D and SG&A expenses by $70 million, improved non-GAAP net income per share on a diluted basis by 21 percent and increased cash flow from operations by $371 million. * Sun reported double-digit annual revenue growth in key international markets including Brazil, India, Russia and Greater China. * Global demand for MySQL continued to accelerate, with billings growth in the fourth quarter of over 44 percent year-over-year. * Sun's energy-efficient, Solaris-based Chip Multi-Threading (CMT) systems delivered 61 percent year-over-year billings growth in Q4, and for fiscal year 2008 was a $1.1 billion dollar business for Sun. * ZFS, the foundation of Sun's Open Storage product line, saw increased adoption across the globe during the quarter, and along with the Sun Fire x4500 server - the world's first hybrid server/storage data server - helped customers reduce costs through the use of open source software on industry standard systems. During the fourth quarter, Sun continued to leverage its cash position, spending $464 million to repurchase 35.7 million shares of its common stock. Currently, $36 million remains of the $3 billion share repurchase program announced in Sun's fourth quarter of fiscal 2007. Sun also announced today that its Board of Directors authorized an additional repurchase of up to $1 billion of the company's outstanding common shares.