VMware had its earnings call yesterday afternoon and just like EMC, it has also reported remarkable growth. The company’s revenues in Q1, 2011 added up to an impressive $844 million, beating its own and analysts’ exceptions expectations with a 33% year-over-year increase. Deferred, or unearned revenue rose to $2 billion and grew 46% from the same period a year ago.

Mark Peek, VP of Investor Relations at VMware, have said this during the earnings call:

“The strength of our balance sheet is evident, with cash and investments of $3.7 billion and unearned revenue of nearly $2 billion. Customers continue to move along the virtualization journey and migrate from virtualizing their test and dev environments and simpler Tier 3 apps to more mission-critical applications, including databases, ERP systems, e-mail and collaboration systems.”

Investment firm Wedbush Equity Research said that ” VMware’s products offer stability, a broader feature set and better performance” than Microsoft.

Peek’s and Wedbush’s claim seems to have been reflected fairly well in the earnings call, which also revealed revenue from services, including subscriptions, consulting and support, increased 32%, while license revenue rose 34%. Moreover, The Register highlighted that the virtualization giant’s net income stood at 60 percent, while the company brought about 15 percent to the bottom line – a figure that would any monopoly in a given software segment, according to Timothy Prickett.

VMware’s operating margin improved to 18.2% from 16.1%. Also, CFO Mark Peek provided a revenue estimate of $860 million to $880, further surprising Wall Street while the company’s stock surged by an impressive 10 percent.

VMware is making a big effort to expand and strengthen its monetization channels, beyond just virtualization, too. One of the most notable recent developments in this context is Cloud Foundery, the industry’s first open source PaaS. VMware us very keen on expanding the reach of this new offering, and CEO Paul Maritz noted during the earnings call that his company is ramping up its efforts.