Business management software designer TIBCO (NASDAQ:TIBX) reports second-quarter earnings after Thursday's closing bell. Here's a quick look at the story so far, to help you manage your expectations of this business.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or waffle? Reuters Estimates says that 16 analyst firms cover the company. Six of them are buying TIBCO stock, one is selling, and the other nine hold their horses for now. In our Motley Fool CAPS database, it's a three-star stock with four-star ambitions, based on input from 130 investors.
  • Revenues. $132.5 million would satisfy the analysts' consensus projection, 9.3% greater than last year's $121.2 million.
  • Earnings. Wall Street expects about $0.08 per share, on average -- exactly what the company produced a year ago.

What management says:
In the first-quarter earning report, CEO Vivek Ranadive noted, "Demand for our software infrastructure platform continues to be driven by core business needs within companies and by the maturation of technology trends in SOA, BPM and predictive business."

What management does:
For all that dealmaking prowess, TIBCO acts like a larger and more mature company than its svelte $1.8 billion market cap might indicate. This is not the breathless growth story of someone like Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), or Nuance Communications (NASDAQ:NUAN), but a measured and careful ascent with tight margin controls. Perhaps that just goes with the business -- TIBCO competes with juggernauts like Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) and IBM (NYSE:IBM) for every piece of corporate love buzz it gets, after all.

Margins

11/2005

2/2006

5/2006

9/2006

11/2006

2/2007

Gross

72.2%

71.8%

72.9%

73.3%

74.6%

74.6%

Operating

13.9%

13.3%

15.3%

15.5%

16.8%

16.9%

Net

16.3%

14.9%

14.8%

13.8%

14.1%

14.7%

Y-O-Y Growth

11/2005

2/2006

5/2006

9/2006

11/2006

2/2007

Revenue

15.2%

9.4%

8.9%

12.2%

16%

15.8%

Earnings

61.5%

44.9%

19.7%

5.8%

0.4%

14.6%
All data courtesy of Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's. Data reflects trailing-12-month performance for the quarters ended in the named months.

One Fool says:
You know how Oracle and SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) like to take pot shots at each others' SOA strategies? You could argue that both of them are just following the lead of TIBCO's pioneering and habitually award-winning platforms.

TIBCO fell hard when the dot-com bubble popped, and perhaps that's why the market seems cautious toward this brilliant little company. A quick glance at TIBCO's CAPS page shows that many of us can smell a takeover in the air if one of those larger rivals tires of playing catch-up to a small cap. Either way, I think the company's best days are yet to come, as SOA implementations take hold and show reluctant adopters the flexibility and ease of maintenance benefits. We're near the bottom of that hill today, and the only way to go is up.

Nuance Communications is a Motley Fool Hidden Gems pick. Want to uncover other small-cap companies that Wall Street's overlooked? Take a free 30-day trial today.

Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any of the companies discussed here. You can check out Anders' holdings if you like, and Foolish disclosure is handy for a trek across the hills and valleys of Wall Street.