Shares of Brocade Communications Systems
When Brocade reports third-quarter results after Thursday's closing bell, analysts expect to see earnings jumping 33% year over year to $0.12 per share. Sales should climb a modest 7% to $537 million. Management's own guidance centers on revenue of $535 million and the same $0.12 non-GAAP earnings target, so the traditional guiding lights are closely aligned this time.
In the longer view, Brocade expects to gain market share in the networked storage market, based on rapid adoption of the company's high-performance storage fabrics. That's an important market because these products are perfect for meeting the data-hungry storage needs of virtualized data centers and big data manipulation. These are grade-A growth catalysts, and profitable products to boot. As a result, management raised its cash flow guidance for the 2012 fiscal year by 6%.
Brocade's market-share gains are made easier by chief rival Cisco Systems
In other news last week, Brocade was awarded $112 million in a patent infringement and unfair competition lawsuit against privately held A10 Networks. But that loot will fall into the company's fiscal fourth-quarter report, assuming that A10 doesn't appeal the jury's decision. Either way, it's not money in the bank that would apply to the third quarter.
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