Informix to Report Unexpected Profit

Informix Corp. said will report a profit for the fourth quarter--surprising Wall Street expectations of a loss--on stronger sales of its database software products. The Menlo Park-based company, which has been struggling for the last year amid marketing missteps and management turmoil, also said it expects results to continue improving in coming quarters. After the market closed, the company released preliminary figures for the fourth quarter. It said it expects to report net income of $9.2 million, or 5 cents a share on a diluted basis. A comparison with last year’s results was not immediately available because the company is restating its results for the last few quarters because of accounting errors. Wall Street had been expecting Informix to report a loss of 16 cents a share. Informix shares rose 22 cents to $7.38 on Nasdaq.