Enterprise software specialist VMware, business-wise, is having a good COVID-19.

Financial metrics for fiscal Q1 2021 (ended May 1) were liberally peppered with double-digit year-on-year growth.

Revenue, at $2.73 billion, was a 12% rise on Q1 2020. VMware earlier pulled fiscal guidance for the quarter, on account of coronavirus uncertainty, which – as it happened – was $2.73 billion.

The guidance apparently factored in a COVID-19 drag on its Asian business, but any fears that the pandemic might significantly derail other areas seem to have been misplaced.

"While all geographies were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic [in Q1], we were pleased with sales execution," said Pat Gelsinger, VMware's CEO, on the company's earnings conference call. "COVID-19," he added, "was not stopping customers from their cloud migration projects."

Fueling top-line growth was an impressive 39% leap in subscription and SaaS revenue, to $572 million. Add in license fees to the "subscription and SaaS" segment, and revenue mustered a healthy 17% year-on-year growth, to $1.23 billion.

There was good news on the operational front, too. GAAP operating income was $418 million, an increase of 18% from fiscal Q1 2020.

GAAP net income for Q1 2021 was $386 million ($0.92 per diluted share) compared to $380 million ($0.89 per diluted share) for the same quarter in fiscal 2020.

VMware is not reinstating formal full-year financial guidance for fiscal 2021, but Zane Rowe, VMware's CFO, thought it was "reasonable to expect revenue growth to be in the mid-single digits."

Rowe expected that as economies around the world recover, VMware would "get back to a more normalized double-digit growth rate" in full-year fiscal 2022.

— Ken Wieland, contributing editor, special to Light Reading