HP Earnings Rebound

Hewlett-Packard late Tuesday released the financial results for its fourth fiscal quarter, which ended Oct. 31.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based technology vendor earned $1.09 billion, or 37 cents a share, on revenue of $21.4 billion for the quarter, according to HP.

Earnings for the same quarter a year ago came in at $862 million, or 28 cents per share, on revenue of $19.9 billion.

The fourth-quarter 2004 revenue jump represented an 8 percent year-over-year increase.

A positive turnaround was seen in HP's Enterprise Servers and Storage (ESS) revenue, which increased to $4.1 billion after coming in at $3.3 billion during the fiscal third quarter of 2004.

The low third-quarter 2004 ESS revenue caused a $208 million operating loss for the division, and cost HP's top ESS executives, Peter Blackmore and Jim Milton, their jobs.

"After a challenging third quarter, I am pleased at the steady improvement we made in Q4," said HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina. She added that ESS has been "returned to profitability" with its 22 percent quarter-to-quarter increase.