15 October 2004 Sun Microsystems has made tentative steps towards regaining former glories, posting an increase of first quarter revenues for the first time since 2001, but it continued to report losses.

Sun reported first quarter revenues for its 2005 fiscal year, which ended September 2004, of $2.62 billion, up 3.6% on the same quarter in the previous year. This is the second consecutive quarter that Sun has reported an increase in year on year revenues.

“We are on the offensive again as a result of our newly revamped product line, a result of our sometimes controversial but continued commitment to R&D investments in the last three years,” said Sun’s chairman and CEO, Scott McNealy.

But despite sales growth, Sun is still some distance away from its sale records in the halcyon days of 2001, where first quarter revenues were $5.01 billion.

Sun’s net loss for its first quarter was $174 million, down from a net loss of $286 million a year ago. The loss includes charges resulting from redundancies as well as a payment to Kodak, having settled a patent dispute relating to Sun’s Java programming language.