EMC's Q1 Revenue Up 20 Percent, Reports Positive Outlook

First quarter revenue was $2.4 billion, up from $1.87 billion for the same period last year, while profits were $270 million, a 93 percent increase over last year's $140 million. While EMC saw sales slow down in February, it saw a spike in the past three weeks weeks of March -- unlike rival IBM, which last week said it failed to meet forecasts based on its inability to close some key deals at the end of the quarter.

As for the rest of the year, Joe Tucci, EMC's president and CEO, said he had every reason to be upbeat about the company's prospects for the rest of the year.

"After speaking with hundreds of customers and talking with our people in the front lines, I firmly believe there is ample demand, opportunity and budget in the global marketplace for the products and services EMC sells for us to achieve the second quarter and 2005 goals which we have set for ourselves this year," Tucci said.

Tucci also pointed out that the company is on an 18-month path to refresh its entire product line, including the release of its new Celerra NSX gateway, a NAS device targeted at the high-end that launched Monday. EMC is also set to release its long-awaited Storage Router virtualization engine, which Tucci said will be released next month. The latter initially will be sold only through EMC's direct sales force.

Based on EMC's strong outlook, shares rose 13 percent, closing just shy of $13 per share on Tuesday.