Eaton, a manufacturer of a wide variety of electrical equipment for data centers and other purposes, reported a substantial year-over-year decline in sales during the company's third fiscal quarter, as its end-markets declined by about a fourth in the three months.

"The sales decline of 26 percent in the quarter consisted of a 23 percent decline in core sales and a 3 percent decline from exchange rates compared to the third quarter of 2008,"Eaton Chairman and CEO Alexander Cutler said in a statement. "Our end markets declined by 24 percent in the quarter."

Eaton reported a net income of $193 million ($1.14 per share) during the quarter - a 39-percent drop from the $315 million it reported during the same period last year. The company made $3 billion in sales during the quarter, representing a 26-percent decrease from 2008.

Still, Cutler said the company was satisfied with the results that exceeded its previous projections, attributing the better-than-expected report to an enterprise-wide cost reductions Eaton undertook over the past year.

"Our revenues in the third quarter grew 4 percent over the second quarter, reflecting equally the very early stages of recovery in our end markets and benefit from the strengthening of currencies against the dollar,"he said.

Last week Eaton launched a new power system controller for telecom network operators, featuring automated site-energy control.

Apple reports success
Saying that the high-tech giant Apple had a much better quarter than Eaton did would be a gross understatement. The company's CFO Peter Oppenheimer reported "Apple's most profitable quarter ever"in a conference call on Monday.

The company made a net profit of $1.67 billion during the quarter ending September 26. Apple's revenues in its fourth fiscal quarter were $9.87 billion.