Revenue for the quarter, the second of Sun's fiscal year, was US$3.22 billion, down from $3.62 billion in the same quarter a year earlier, Sun announced Tuesday. That was slightly ahead of the consensus analyst estimate of $3.16 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

The net loss for the quarter was $209 million, or $0.28 per share, which compares to a net profit of $260 million, or $0.31 per share, for its second quarter of fiscal 2008. The loss per share includes $222 million in restructuring charges, related mostly to the mass workforce reductions that Sun announced in November.

Excluding those and other charges, Sun would have reported a profit for the quarter of $114 million, or $0.15 per share, the company said. Analysts had forecast a loss before charges of $0.10 per share, so the profit was an unexpected surprise.

Sun has been battling to grow its revenue for several quarters as customers cut back spending on its high-end Sparc servers in favor of industry-standard x86-type machines. Some of Sun's largest customers are big financial firms, so it has been hit particularly hard by the turmoil on Wall Street.

The company announced a plan in November to lay off up to 18 percent of its workforce, or 5,000 to 6,000 employees, as part of a restructuring designed to save it $700 million to $800 million per year. The move followed Sun's report of a $1.68 billion loss for the September quarter.