Excerpted from:
Reuters - biz.yahoo.com
UPDATE - Business Objects third-quarter profit doubles
Thursday October 23, 5:04 pm ET
(Adds CEO interview)
NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Business Objects SA (NasdaqNM:BOBJ - News; Paris:BOBJ.PA - News), the French-American software company, on Thursday said its quarterly earnings more than doubled on higher demand for its business intelligence software, and gave an upbeat view for the current quarter.
The company, based in Paris and San Jose, California, said net income was $10.8 million, or 17 cents a share, compared with $4.9 million, or 8 cents, a year earlier.
Business Objects, whose software is used to sift corporate data for potentially valuable trends, said revenue rose 18 percent to $129.1 million. Software license revenue, an important gauge of software companies, rose 8 percent.
Analysts expected 16 cents a share on revenue of $123.3 million, said Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.
"Overall business intelligence market is vibrant," Bernard Liautaud, chief executive, told Reuters. "Companies realize they need to have a strategy to exploit all the information that's being collected."
The results include $1.5 million of expenses related to the pending acquisition of privately held Crystal Decisions.
Liautaud said the company will become the biggest vendor in the business intelligence sector when it completes the acquisition, unseating Canadian rival Cognos Inc. (Toronto:CSN.TO - News)
For the quarter ending December, Business Objects expects earnings per share to be 25 cents to 28 cents and revenue to be $144 million to $147 million.
Analysts expected 26 cents a share on revenue of $139.9 million.
