Hewlett-Packard has produced a damn fine Q3 with PC, printer and Unix server sales propelling the company to a 33 per cent jump in profits.

Profits from continuing operations (ie. minus the measurement business spun off into Agilent) were $1.01 billion (Q3 1999: $759 million). Sales were up 15 per cent to $11.8 billion from $10.3 billion. So net margins are ratcheting up on the back of increasing product sales - not a bad trick to pull off.

Maybe HP CEO Carly Fiorina is worth that extraordinarily inflated shares and options package worth $90 million, awarded in September 1999, after all.

Q3 Unix server sales were up 13 per cent a year ago, consumer PC sales jumped a stonking 62 per cent and notebooks a stratospheric 93 per cent. HP claims that this makes it the world's fastest growing PC vendor.

Sales from the printer business, HP's historical cash cow, climbed 15 per cent from a year ago. ®