Good Times Keep Rolling At DellGood Times Keep Rolling At Dell

Dell Computer continued its roll despite the overall slowdown in tech spending for the past few years. The company reported Thursday that it finished fiscal 2003, ended Jan. 31, with a profit of $2.1 billion, or 80 cents per share, on $35.4 billion in revenue. That's up from a profit of $1.8 billion on $31.2 billion in revenue for the previous year.

The computer maker finished fiscal 2003 with a flurry. For its fourth fiscal quarter, Dell reported that income was up 32%, to $603 million, or 23 cents per share, and revenue was up 21%, to $9.7 billion. For the first quarter of fiscal 2004, Dell expects revenue of $9.5 billion, up 18% from last year, and per-share earnings of 23 cents, 35% higher.

Strong sales came from a variety of areas within the company. Revenue from external storage systems increased 87% year over year. The company's most rapid fourth-quarter storage growth came from sales of Dell EMC systems for storage-area networks. Combined shipments of Inspiron and Latitude notebook computers were up 33%, thanks largely to growing customer adoption of wireless technology. Shipments of Dell's Dimension and OptiPlex desktop PCs increased 24%.

Last month, Dell ended what was supposed to be a seven-year, $16 billion contract with IBM signed in 1999 to buy IBM's storage, microelectronics, networking, and display technology for integration into Dell systems. The arrangement also called for patent cross-licensing between the companies and collaboration on development of product technology. But the deal began to fall apart as IBM sold off various businesses, including its hard-disk-drive business to Hitachi Ltd. in December for $2.1 billion. Dell in January also cut back a $6 billion services partnership with IBM Global Services, citing lack of demand from its customers.