salesforce.com Sends the Bears Packing

Fellow Fool Anders Bylund nailed it when he predicted that battleground stock salesforce.com (NYS: CRM) would beat estimates again. Without further ado, let's break down the digits.

Fourth-quarter revenue jumped 38% to $632 million -- a solid beat relative to the $623 million revenue consensus. By the time you get to the bottom line, you may encounter a familiar feeling, with the non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.43 also putting the $0.40 Street estimate to rest. Meanwhile, operating cash flow rose 45% to $240 million.

For the full year, revenue increased 37% to $2.27 billion, with non-GAAP earnings of $1.36 per share.

Salesforce's revenue pipeline keeps on growing, with its deferred revenue balance jumping 48% to $1.38 billion. The current portion of deferred revenue increased by 41%, which was boosted by longer invoice durations, so part of that bump is strictly related to a change in invoice terms. Unbilled deferred revenue put up an encouraging gain of 47% to $2.2 billion.

Those solid digits are contributing to some upbeat guidance figures. First-quarter revenue is forecasted in the range of $673 million to $678 million, ahead of the $663 million that the Street was looking for next quarter. On the other hand, the non-GAAP earnings-per-share guidance of between $0.33 and $0.34 is a hair shy of $0.36 that analysts are calling for.

Full-year 2013 sales guidance has now been cranked up from previous figures to a new range of between $2.92 billion and $2.95 billion, with the bottom line expected to be between $1.58 and $1.62 per share.

CEO Marc Benioff chalked up the guidance bump to "strong customer response" to the company's social-enterprise moves. This quarter is a stark contrast to the last report, when shares plunged as billings growth disappointed. It also differs from larger rival Oracle's (NAS: ORCL) most recent report, which sent shivers through IT investors' bones.

Oracle and SAP (NYS: SAP) have been snapping up cloud-software makers in the meantime, but I wouldn't expect any bids for salesforce.com any time soon, considering its nearly $20 billion market cap and nearly five-digit P/E. The good news is that salesforce.com is doing just fine on its own.

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At the time thisarticle was published Fool contributorEvan Niuholds no position in any company mentioned. Check out hisholdings and a short bio. The Motley Fool owns shares of Oracle.Motley Fool newsletter serviceshave recommended both buying shares of and shorting Salesforce.com. Try any of our Foolish newsletter servicesfree for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe thatconsidering a diverse range of insightsmakes us better investors. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.

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