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Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) -- fiscal Q3 EPS $0.46 vs. $0.40 last year; estimate: $0.41
-- Software powerhouse and anti-trust target Microsoft announced fiscal first-quarter (ended September 30) revenues of $5.8 billion, versus $5.38 billion last year and well ahead of analysts' $5.69 billion projection. Net income, before an accounting charge, came in at $2.58 billion. EPS, not counting the charge, was $0.46, a nickel ahead of Wall Street's consensus and $0.06 better than last year -- but look for market watchers to continue to harp on the company's investment income, which helped the company beat estimates even as operating income fell year-over-year. Microsoft CFR John Connors, who said the company beat operating income estimates as well, pointed to the success of Windows 2000 Professional and the Windows Millennium Edition operating system for home computers, along with strong preliminary sales of Windows 2000 served as the drivers of his company's results.
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Rambus (Nasdaq: RMBS) -- fiscal Q4 EPS $0.09 vs. $0.03 last year; estimate: $0.06
-- Rambus, which licenses RDRAM, SDRAM, and DDR SDRAM to semiconductor manufacturers and Sony (NYSE: SNE) for Playstation 2, saw its royalty revenue skyrocket 200% sequentially to $20 million. Rambus signed up a number of new licensees for SDRAM and DDR this quarter, successfully asserting its patent. The most recent company to agree to pay royalties on all its DRAM is NEC, the world's fourth-largest DRAM manufacturer. That's good, because contract revenues fell 34% year-over-year. Total revenue neared $27 million. On that, Rambus churned out $10.2 million in net income -- a 38% profit margin. Oh, to be an intellectual property company. Of course, Rambus is still valued at $5.7 billion on $72 million in trailing twelve month revenue. Tread carefully.
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Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) -- fiscal Q1 EPS $0.30 vs $0.16 last year; estimate: $0.26
-- Internet computing company Sun's revenues rolled in at just over $5 billion, up 60% versus last year and ahead of analysts' expectations by $600 million or so. The only potentially worrisome sunspot: the company's gross margins slipped to 48.2% in the quarter compared to 51.9% a year ago and 52.1% last quarter. Sun's earnings were supposed to be announced after the close today, but were inadvertently released on the firm's website earlier this afternoon. (Ah, the wonders of technology.)
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Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) -- Q3 pro forma EPS $0.33 vs $0.26 last year; estimate: $0.26
-- Analog and digital signal processor maker Texas Instruments said revenues from the firm's core semiconductor business grew 29% year-over-year, comparable to the 28% annual growth rate turned in last quarter. Gross margin ticked down a tad to 49.3% from 49.5% in the previous two quarters. As a key supplier of chips to wireless handsets, Texas Instruments' business growth is viewed by some observers as one of the most relevant gauges of overall mobile phone growth. Given that fact, the company's forecast that its wireless-related revenues will decline sequentially by an unspecified amount in Q4 will probably grab the large share of investors' attention tomorrow.
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