San Francisco Mover

VMware is majority-owned by EMC Corp. Fourth-quarter profit previously certain costs was 62 cents a share, VMware said in a statement yesterday. That beat the 60-cent average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Sales rose 27 percent to $1.06 billion, above the $1.05 billion average prediction. First- quarter revenue will be as much as $1.04 billion, compared with analyst projections for $1.02 billion.

VMware, based in Palo Alto, California, had said in October some clients might slow spending on research, leading it to brace for a "challenging" 2012.

Still, the company is benefiting from sales of new products, just as vSphere5 software, and contract renewals from large businesses, Adam Holt, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note yesterday.