Hosted software vendor Salesforce.com (CRM) this afternoon reported fiscal Q1 revenue and earnings per share ahead of estimates, and forecast the current quarter well ahead of consensus.

Q1 revenue came in at $504 million, yielding EPS of 28 cents, on a non-GAAP basis. Analysts had been modeling $483 million in revenue and 27 cents in EPS.

Q1′s EPS figure excludes $48 million of stock-based compensation expense in the quarter, among other items left out.

Deferred revenue was up 38%, year over year, at $915 million, while subscription and support revenue rose 35%.

CEO Marc Benioff said the company was, “The first enterprise cloud computing company to reach a $2.0 billion annual revenue run rate.”

For Q2, the company projects $526 million to $528 million in revenue, and EPS of 29 cents to 30 cents. analysts have been modeling $506 million and 26 cents in EPS.

For the full year, the company is modeling $2.15 billion to $2.17 billion, and EPS of $1.30 to $1.32. That’s ahead of the average estimate of $2.11 billion and $1.27.

Salesforce will hold its conference call with analysts tonight at 5 pm, Eastern, and you can catch it here.

Salesforce shares are up  $9.29, or 7%, at $144.57 $10.49, or almost 8%, at $146.30 i n late trading.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Research firm Gartner this afternoon offers its latest update on the global mobile device market, citing an 19% rise in everything from the lowest-end phones to the smartphone.

Smartphones made up 23.6% of the market in Q1, says analyst Robert Cozza, and rose 85%, year over year, on volume of shipments. He believes some consumers may have held off on smartphone purchases as they observed the flurry of product announcements for things arriving after Q1.

Both Apple (AAPL) and Google stand out as the big winners in the survey, no surprise.

Among the vendors, Nokia (NOK) led shipment volume, of course, with 25% market share and 107.6 million units, although that was down from a 30.6% share a year earlier, when Nokia sold 110.1 million units.

Samsung (SSNLF) was second with 16%, down from 18%, LG Electronics (LGERF) was third with 5.6%, down from 7.6, and Apple was fourth, with 3.9% share, up from 2.3%, helping it to vault ahead of fifth place Research in Motion (RIMM), whose share held steady at 3%.

In smartphones, where Gartner ranks by platform, rather than hardware vendor, Google’s (GOOG) Android topped the charts with 36% of smartphone sales, almost quadrupling, year over year. Symbian, sold by Nokia and others, had 27% share, way down form 44%, and Apple’s iOS software platform rose slightly from 15.3% to 16.8%. Gartner reiterated a view that the partnership between Microsoft (MSFT) and Nokia will “accelerate Windows Phone’s momentum,” with the platform having only 3.6% share of smartphones in Q1, down from 6.8% a year earlier.

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Professional networking site LinkedIn this afternoon priced its initial public offering, set to trade tomorrow, at $45, above an expected range of $42 to $45, and well above some recent private transactions in the stock at around $30.

LinkedIn plans to sell a total of 4.8 million shares, with some selling shareholders offering a total of 3 million shares. There’s also an over-allotment option for another 1.2 million shares. The offering is underwritten by Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, UBS, and Allen & Co. The stock is expected to trade under the symbol LNKD.

According to data from the private, secondary market SharesPost, LinkedIn shares were trading as recently as March 21st at a price of $30.79, on average. LinkedIn is among the first companies going public after having already seen its shares trade hands in the private exchanges such as SharesPost and Second Market. As such, it may be an interesting barometer of what kind of payoff investors in those private markets, who are high-net worth, “professional” investors, can expect when they go to unload their shares on the broader public.

In its amended prospectus filed yesterday, LinkedIn recorded $93 million in revenue for the first quarter of this year, roughly double what it racked up a year earlier. The company made most of that from “hiring solutions,”  basically letting companies mine the LinkedIn database of over 100 million members for prospects.

Cost of revenue also doubled, the company said, as it hired more people, as did general and administrative costs. Net income of $2.1 million rose 14%, year over year, while Ebitda rose by almost half to $13.3 million.

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Semiconductor design software maker Synopsys (SNPS) this afternoon reported fiscal Q2 revenue for the quarter ending in April ever-so-slightly ahead of consensus, and EPS in line, and offered a Q3 view and a year forecast that were more or less as expected.

Q2 revenue rose 16%, year over year, to $393.7 million, yielding non-GAAP EPS of 45 cents, compared to analysts’ $391 million and 45 cents.

For the current quarter, the company sees revenue of $378 million to $386 million, and EPS of 41 cents to 43 cents, on a non-GAAP basis. Analysts have been modeling $381 million and EPS of 43 cents.

For the year, the company sees $1.5 billion to $1.53 billion, and EPS of $1.70 to $1.77, versus the consensus $1.52 billion and $1.76 per share.

The company will hold a conference call with analysts at 5 pm, Eastern, which you can catch here.

Synopsys shares are down 73 cents, or 2.6%, at $27 in late trading. The shares had risen almost 2% during the regular session.

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This afternoon, the US Marshals Service will hold yet another auction of Bernie Madoff’s stuff, with proceeds going to the victims of the Ponzi scheme. Today’s lots are comprised of the liquor left behind by the Ponz Master. As previously mentioned, one lucky bidder will take home Bernie’s prized collection of low-grade mini-bar booze (including a selection of 2-ounce bottles of Smirnoff vodka, Bombay gin and Grand Marnier liqueur). Also up for grabs? A decanter containing a mystery liquid, which starts at $500.

Here’s the description:

An 8½ inch tall, 12-sided crystal decanter with a wax seal over the cork, contents unknown. The decanter has no markings whatsoever.

Any takers?

Why The Madoff Auction Might Turn Sour [CNBC/Morrell Wine]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Busy day for tech bond offerings. Following Google‘s (GOOG) pricing this afternoon of $3 billion of senior unsecured notes, Texas Instruments (TXN) announced this evening they will offer $3.5 billion of senior unsecured notes.

TI will offer $500 million of notes due 2013 with an 0.875% coupon; $1 billion of notes due 2013 with a floating rate; $1 billion of notes due 2014 with a 1.375% coupon; $1 billion of notes due 2016 with a $2.375% coupon.

TI said the proceeds will be used to fund its acquisition of National Semiconductor (NSM), announced last month, and for general corporate purposes.

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Shares of memory chip interface technology developer Rambus (RMBS) are down $2.97, or 15%, at $16.33 after being halted multiple times as news circulated this afternoon that a U.S. appeals court ruled Rambus destroyed evidence in a patent infringement suit.

Dow Jones Newswires’s Shara Tibken writes that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated Rambus’s victory against memory maker Hynix Semiconductor (000660.KS) of Korea, and ordered the trial court to look at whether Rambus destroyed documents in the case.

The court also determined that Rambus had destroyed documents in a suit against Micron Technology (MU). Micron had already won a dismissal of Rambus’s charges because of the latter’s document destruction, but it appears that verdict now is also sent back to the lower courts for review.

Bloomberg’s Susan Decker and William McQuillen this afternoon write that, “If the district court again concludes on remand that there was bad faith and prejudice, the record evidence may indeed justify a dispositive sanction, but the seriousness of such a sanction warrants an analysis of all of the factors discussed,” citing the appeals court statement in the Micron matter.

Reuters’s Diane Bartz quotes the appellate court statement, which said, “It is undisputed that Rambus destroyed between 9,000 and 18,000 pounds of documents in 300 boxes.”

Micron shares are down 23 cents, or 2%, at $10.42.

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Auriga Securities analyst Daniel Berenbaum this morning offers his curtain-raiser on Nvidia’s (NVDA) fiscal first quarter report this afternoon, reiterating a Hold rating on the shares, as he sees challenges in Nvidia’s traditional PC graphics market offsetting the bright promise of its “Tegra” line of mobile processors for tablets and smartphones.

“We still don’t see $1 in GAAP EPS in the next two years, which makes it difficult to recommend putting new money to work at these levels.”

He’s modeling 89 cents in GAAP EPS this year, below the Street’s average $1.01 estimate, and $1.08 in non-GAAP EPS, versus the average $1.14 estimate.

Berenbaum says he thinks Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is in “a better position in Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) than it has been for he past six months,” and that Nvidia’s “attach rates” for its graphics chips “seem to be declining.”

As for the company’s announcement monday it bought wireless chip maker Icera, he sees the effort to integrate Nvidia’s chips with Icera’s baseband processor taking several years, “and more experienced companies like Texas Instruments (TXN) have tried and failed.”

For tonight, he’s looking for $948 million and 24 cents EPS, about in line with the Street.

Nvidia shares this morning are down 22 cents, or 1%, at $19.65.

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Cisco Systems (CSCO), following a better-than-expected fiscal Q3 report but a disappointing Q4 outlook, this afternoon told analysts it will make changes in its business to “align our people and investments” as the company tries to move out of a period of “weakness” in parts of its business, including switching products and its public-sector business.

Chief operating officer Gary Moore said the company would seek to “move with speed and agility in the highest impact areas.”

CEO John Chambers told analysts the company must have “no excuses” as it faces competitive pressure and pricing challenges, and that, “We must adjust quickly.”

Cisco plans to streamline its construction of some products and adjust its use of sales channels to improve gross profit margin, and will also lay off workers later this summer in order to shave $1 billion from costs.

Gross margin is expected to be 62% this quarter, on a non-GAAP basis, down from 63.9% last quarter.

The fiscal Q4 forecast offered during the call missed analysts’ estimates, and Chambers said the company would drop its long-term growth target of 12% to 17% annual revenue growth, as that goal was “not reflective of the environment” Cisco finds itself in.

As a side note, a trip through the investor slides that Cisco offered for the call shows some improvement and some deterioration in the growth in various product categories:

The company reported that its sales of routers, which make up 17% of total revenue, rose 7%, year over year, to $1.9 billion, while switch sales, 31% of revenue, fell 9% to $3.3 billion.

Sales of newer products rose 15%, year over year, services offerings saw revenue rise 14%, and all other products rose 11%.

Router growth was better than the 4% growth recorded in fiscal Q2, but below the 13% recorded in Q1. The drop in switch sales was worse than the 7.2% drop in Q2 and a dramatic reversal of the 25% gain back in Q1.

The increase in new product sales was below the 19% recorded in Q2 and the 22% recorded in Q1.

You can see the numbers in the quarterly filings for Q2 here, and for Q1 here, on pages 49 and 44, respectively.

Within new products, Video Connected Home products were down 5%, collaboration technologies were up 39%, security products were up 2%, wireless products were up 32%, and data center products were up 31%.

Cisco shares in late trading were down 53 cents, or 3%, at $17.25, reversing a 4% gain immediately following the report of better-than-expected Q3 results.

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Shares of solid-state drive maker Stec (STEC) are down $2.72, or almost 14%, at $17.35 after the company this afternoon beat Q1 estimates, but the current-quarter forecast missed by a mile, citing ongoing effects of Japan’s disaster.

Q1 revenue was up 145% at $94.9 million, versus the consensus estimate of $91.6 million. EPS of 32 cents per share was as expected.

CEO Manouch Moshayedi called it “one of the finest first-quarter financial results in Stec’s history.”

For the current quarter, Stec sees $80 million to $90 million in revenue, versus the $93.74 million expected, and EPS of 21 cents to 30 cents, versus 31 cents expected.

Moshayedi said some customers were being affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March, which might cause them to delay orders for Stec’s drives.

We anticipate that some of our customers whose supply chains have significant exposure to the most impacted areas of Japan may postpone or reduce their orders for our products in the second quarter of 2011. Due to these unforeseen factors, we are providing a wider than usual range of revenue and EPS targets for the second quarter of 2011. We expect that the shortage of materials experienced by these customers will be resolved in the coming quarters.”

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily