Tibco Right on Target

The software developer meets first-quarter estimates and boosts revenue by 40%.
By Bill Snyder ,

Updated from 4:52 p.m. EST

Tibco Software

(TIBX)

hit its reduced first-quarter targets and boosted revenue by 40%, the company said after the closing bell Thursday.

Net income for the quarter was $10.4 million, or 4 cents per diluted share, on revenue of $104.1 million. On a pro forma basis, the company earned a profit of $12.7 million, or 5 cents a share.

The results were in line with Thomson First Call estimates, but well below the company's original targets of an 8-cent profit on sales ranging from $116 million to $120 million in the quarter.

The announcement and guidance, which was also in line with expectations, had little effect on the stock. In after-hours trading, shares of Tibco were up a penny to $7.74; the stock closed the regular session with a gain of 18 cents to $7.73 a share.

Sales of new software licenses, a key growth metric, were up strongly, appreciating by 25% year over year to $51 million.

Tibco preannounced the bad news about the quarter on March 1, but the stock had been sliding for at least a week as

news of the miss apparently leaked. As a result, the stock took a terrific beating, with 75 million shares changing hands in just two sessions as the stock slid by almost 27%.

CFO Chris O'Meara said Tibco was being deliberately conservative in its forecast and told analysts on a postannouncement conference call to expect a pro forma profit of 5 cents or 6 cents a share on revenue ranging from $105 million to $110 million in the second quarter.

Company CEO Vivek Ranadive blamed much of the miss on the on poor leadership in Europe, where sales were off by 25%; a failure to manage the integration of employees who came to Tibco via last-year's acquisition of software company Staffware; and on himself, for being distracted by his efforts to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Tibco, based in Palo Alto, Calif., sells software used to integrate diverse applications on corporate networks.

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