Brocade's latest set of financials exeeded analysts' expectations yesterday, sending shares in the storage firm up 8 per cent on the Q2 news in pre-Wall Street opening dealing.

Net revenue hit a record $182.7m in the three months to April 29, compared to $144.8m in Q2 2005, up 26 per cent. The bottom line fell though. Brocade brought in a GAAP profit of $13.5m, or $0.05 per share, compared with $21.4m, or $0.08 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago.

The non GAAP picture, which excludes a raft of expenses, was inevitably rosier. Net profit rose 38 per cent on the same period in 2005 to $26.4m. The non-GAAP net income per share figure rose from $0.07 to $0.10. The firm's results in 2005 weren't great though.

Brocade CEO Michael Klayko put a positive spin on the performance. He said: “[We] exceeded our expectations for what is historically a seasonally soft quarter.”

The big three storage acronyms accounted for a whopping 70 per cent of Brocade's record revenues. The firm supplies top-end gear to IBM, HP and EMC.

The biggest cash outlay for the quarter was for Houston-based software firm NuView, which it splurged $60m on in March.®

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