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1. APPLE
Revenue: $8.34 billion (Fiscal 3Q, 2009); $7.46 billion (Fiscal 3Q, 2008)
Net Income: $1.23 billion (F3Q09); $1.07 billion (F3Q08)
There can be little debate about the IT sector's biggest winner this quarter: Apple, which enjoyed the highest revenue and earnings for any non-Christmas quarter in the 23-year-old company's history.
Apple may have been missing CEO Steve Jobs, who returned to work two days after the quarter ended, but the Cupertino company had the golden touch. On the back of price cuts, Apple actually saw Mac sales rise to 2.6 million, up 4 percent from 2.5 million in the same quarter last year, surprising many. And it's no wonder that Microsoft wants to open its retail stores next door to Apple's this fall. The company's 258 stores brought in $1.5 billion, up from $1.45 billion in the same period in 2008.
But Apple's biggest victory came with the iPhone. With the release of the 3GS phone last month and the price reduction for the 3G model, Apple moved an astounding 5.2 million iPhones in the quarter, up from 770,000.
And the device is now making gains in the business world. On the earnings call, Apple COO Timothy Cook pointed to increased interest among small business and large organizations that let staffers purchase the phones for individual use, thanks to new hardware encryption and improved security policies. "Almost 20 percent of the Fortune 100 have purchased at least 10,000 units or more," said Cook. "And there's now multiple corporations and government agencies who have purchased in excess of 25,000 each." | 
