Maker of tin boxes, Dell is reporting that it made shedloads of cash in the second quarter thanks to its enterprise hardware and services businesses. Net income for the quarter ended July 30 was US$545 million, a 16 percent rise from the $472 million reported during the second quarter of last year.

The outfit's  company's revenue beat all of Wall Street's predictions. Revenue in developing countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China accounted for 12 percent of Dell's overall revenue, and was up by 52 percent.

But it was demand for enterprise offerings, including servers and network, storage and services products, which increased most as companies refreshed IT infrastructures, the company said in a statement. There was also growth in the company's laptop and desktop revenue.

Server and networking revenue grew by 35 percent to $1.89 billion, driven by strong growth in blade shipments. Storage revenue grew 13 percent to $624 million, and services revenue increased 57 percent to $1.9 billion. Consumers on the other hand were less interested. Sales were flat at $2.9 billion, the company said.

The company recently took a few steps to boost its enterprise offerings. This week, the company agreed to acquire virtualized storage provider 3PAR for about $1.15 billion. In July it acquired Scalent, a provider of server-virtualization management software, and Ocarina Networks, a storage vendor.