Point taken, profit is not revenue, you're absolutely right. Yet I looked the profit for VMWare for Q3 of 2012 and it's indicated that they made some 150 milli

Point taken, profit is not revenue, you're absolutely right. Yet I looked the profit for VMWare for Q3 of 2012 and it's indicated that they made some 150 million dollars in Q3 of 2012. Then again, I am not an entrepreneur, sure, I might not understand all the details so this might be a bit naive but 150 million dollars in profit still seems like a good chunk of money and kind of clashes in my head with firing 900 people, the kind of situation I would expect if the company was bleeding money all over the place. Then I looked some more and found this and it got even more confusing: http://www.eweek.com/virtualization/vmware-q4-earnings-up-but-stock-slips-14-percent/ http://www.eweek.com/virtualization/vmware-q4-earnings-up-bu... From a noob outsider's point of view, it's almost as if the "value" of the company is not really correlated with its ability to make money and release good products, but on some decision from the market. And I guess this is where I (and most people who are not stock jockeys) completely lose track, where does that projection of what the earnings should be come from? How do people gauge that a quarter is a solid one or a bad one? Real question, any insight appreciated.