Sun Returns To Profitability

Sun Microsystems

Sun, based here, reported an overall loss of 8 cents per share for fiscal 2002, meeting First Call analyst estimates.

Sun revenue for its fourth quarter was $3.4 billion, up 10 percent from the previous quarter's $3.1 billion in revenue. For fiscal 2002, Sun achieved $12.5 billion in revenue, they said.

Sun Chairman, CEO and President Scott McNealy, overseeing his first Sun earnings call since former President Ed Zander's departure earlier this month, said he expects the U.S. economic environment to remain challenging indefinitely. However, he said he is proud of Sun's performance in the past year.

"This is a big gold star for the team this last fiscal year," McNealy said. "I think the team has done a great job."

Before Thursday's results, Sun posted four consecutive quarters of losses. In October, Sun executives said they expected the company to report positive earnings per share by the June quarter.

McNealy said that Sun does not foresee downsizing its business by implementing more layoffs, though he admitted that many financial analysts "think we could take the infrastructure down."

"People are working hard, they're motivated, they're doing good things, cracking new accounts, developing great new products," McNealy said. "Assuming that the economy doesn't do anything more screwy to us going forward, I think we can grow into our normal, standard operating model while maintaining the quality of horsepower in terms of people we have going forward."

Thursday's earnings call also marked the debut of Sun's new CFO, Steve McGowan, who replaced former CFO Michael Lehman. Lehman left the company in April.