Interactive Intelligence shares fall on smaller profit

Revenue grew 11 percent, to $52.8 million, compared to the previous year. The company reported profit of 9 cents per share on a non-GAAP basis, missing analyst estimates by 6 cents per share. Interactive's short-term results appeared to be dinged by a higher percentage of cloud-based product orders, which resulted in more revenue being deferred to future quarters.

The company increasingly is making its communications software available as a service in other words hosted and managed off-site instead of at the customer’s premises. The appeal of such cloud computing is that clients don’t have to allocate costly space on their own IT systems.

The first quarter

"For the first quarter, a higher mix of cloud-based orders and the structure of certain product orders resulted in more earnings being deferred to future quarters," Interactive founder and CEO Donald Brown said in a prepared statement. "We are optimistic about our outlook for the remainder of the year, and we are maintaining our revenue, order growth and profitability guidance for 2012."

Unbilled future cloud-based earnings in the quarter jumped to $40.6 million, from $18.6 million while the first quarter of 2011. Interactive stock fell as low as $27.27 per share Thursday morning previously rebounding to $28.49, down 7.4 percent from Wednesday's closing price.