Compellent: Preliminary Fiscal 1Q10 Financial Results

Compellent Technologies, Inc. announced preliminary results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010.

Based on preliminary results that have yet to be reviewed by its auditors, the Company expects to report revenue for the first quarter in a range of approximately $31.5 to $32.0 million. This would represent an increase of approximately 12% to 14% over the first quarter of 2009 and a decrease of 12% to 13% compared with revenue in the fourth quarter of 2009. In its earnings call on February 11, 2010, the Company provided first quarter 2010 guidance for revenue of $35 to $37 million.

"This sequential decrease in revenue is mainly due to seasonality that had more of an impact on the Company this quarter than it has previously, changes made to optimize our sales organization, and delays in larger revenue orders," said Phil Soran, president and CEO of Compellent. "We remain positive about the outlook for Compellent’s continued growth. The reception to our innovative storage technologies remains strong and we believe we have the best solutions available to address the requirements of rapidly emerging markets such as data center virtualization."

Additional first quarter 2010 preliminary results include:

• Gross margin is expected to increase between 100 and 200 basis points from fourth quarter 2009 results.
• Deferred revenue is expected to increase $3.0 to $3.5 million from fourth quarter 2009.
• Cash and investments are expected to be approximately $131 million on March 31, 2010 compared to $123.8 million on December 31, 2009.
• Total installed end-user base grew to 1,942 customers, an increase of 130 new end users from the previous quarter.

Mr. Soran concluded: "Our team continues to look for areas to improve our operations. We fully expect that the strategies that have enabled our success over the past few years including our dynamic feature-rich storage solution, our marketing and sales emphasis on mid-size enterprises, our investment in our channel partners and our unique business model will lead us to a return to sequential revenue growth in the second quarter of 2010. We will provide second quarter financial guidance when we report our full financial results for the first quarter 2010."

The Company expects to announce final first quarter 2010 results on Wednesday, April 28, 2010.