Citrix, Akamai and Radware report Q3 results

I’ll start this newsletter with some questions: Do you think the economy is turning around? Are you seeing positive signs of growth? Looking ahead to 2010, do you think IT budgets will bounce back? (If I get enough replies I'll share the answers in an upcoming newsletter.)

The last newsletter covered the latest financials from F5 and Riverbed. The CEOs at both vendors expressed some hope that the economy is beginning to recover. The quarter ended Sept. 30 was a mixed bag for this next group of vendors, which includes Citrix Systems, Akamai Technologies and Radware.

Citrix struggles with product license revenue but grows income
Citrix reported revenue of $401 million, a slight gain compared to $399 million in last year’s third quarter. Net income increased 8% to $53 million, or 29 cents per diluted share, compared to $49 million, or 26 cents per diluted share, for the year-ago quarter. Compared to a year ago, revenue from license updates grew 7%; online services revenue grew 21%; and technical services revenue, which includes consulting, education and technical support, grew 20%. Product license revenue, however, decreased 18%. “I’m pleased with our solid third quarter results,” said Citrix CEO Mark Templeton. “Our sales, product and operational teams executed very well in a tough economic climate to not only post good results, but to strengthen Citrix leadership in the Web collaboration, desktop virtualization and datacenter transformation markets.”

Akamai grows revenue but income shrinks
Akamai’s third-quarter revenue came in at $206.5 million, a 5% increase over last year’s third quarter revenue. Net income fell 2%, however, as compared to a year ago. Akamai reported net income of $32.7 million, or 18 cents per diluted share, down from $33.4 million in Q3 ’08. On the plus side, the number of customers under recurring contracts at the end of the third quarter increased to a record 3,031, an 8% increase year-over-year. "We are pleased with Akamai's solid performance in the third quarter, with both promising signs of growth in high quality video online and continued strong demand for our value-added solutions," Akamai CEO Paul Sagan said in a statement.

Radware ups revenue, gets back in the black
Application delivery player Radware reported revenue of $29.2 million for the third quarter. This represents an increase of 24% compared with revenues of $23.5 million for the third quarter of 2008. Net income came in at $200,000, or 1 cent per diluted share, compared with a net loss of $8.5 million (44 cents per diluted share) in last year’s third quarter. “We are pleased to report yet another record quarter of results along with a significant increase in profitability,” said Radware CEO Roy Zisapel in a statement. “For several quarters now we have been able to sequentially increase market share.”

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.