In spite of the financial downturn that is affecting my 401K (now probably a 2K) and my retirement plans, storage companies reported strong financial results. Among the companies reporting financial results are EMC, Compellent, Emulex and QLogic.

EMC announced third quarter financial results – it added the last quarter to 20 consecutive quarters of double-digit, year-over-year revenue. The company advised shareholders however, that a slowdown in IT spending could cause its profit margins to narrow. During the third quarter EMC’s revenue was $3.7 billion and is GAAP net income was $411 million, an increase of 14% over a year ago. The company’s profit was below earnings of $429.9 million – an occurrence CFO David Goulden explained: "We're all going through a little tough patch right now, but we're certainly hoping that things won't get too, too terrible.”

Compellent reported its first ever quarterly profit of 1 cent per share and revenue of $24.6 million, an increase of 17% from the second quarter of 2008. The company claimed that the number of customers using Compellent’s Storage Center array increased to 1,086 from 740. Compellent went public in October 2007.

Rivals Emulex and QLogic both reported good financial results. Emulex reported net revenues of $111.7 million, with server products garnering $81.2 million or 73% of total net revenues. The company reported GAAP operating income of $9.2 million, or 8% of total net revenues.

QLogic reported that net revenue increased 22% from the comparable quarter last year to a record $171.2 million. The company’s net income was $27.2 million GAAP and net revenue was $171.2 million, an increase of 22% from $140.3 million in the comparable quarter last year. Revenue from Host Products, which are comprised primarily of Fibre Channel and iSCSI host bus adapters and InfiniBand host channel adapters, was $119.7 million.

Each of the companies cited the current macro-economic environment.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW.