Virtualization titan VMware will be holding its earnings call to report the fiscal results of its fourth quarter, and the general consensus on Wall Street seems to be on the optimistic side.

The expectation is that the company will report profit of 43 cents a share, a substantial increase from the 24 cents per share it reported last year. Annual net earnings are estimated to be at $1.51 per share if VMware has management to meet these expectations in Q4.

As for revenue, $1.05 billion is the average amount across all forecasts, or 25.6 percent more than the same period last year.  Sales grew at double-digit rates in the past four consecutive quarters, and this trend is believed to have sustained itself in Q4.

“The majority of analysts (58.1%) rate Vmware as a buy. That percentage is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 69.4% buys. Wall Street has warmed to the stock over the past three months, with the average analyst estimate increasing to moderate buy from hold. Last quarter, 15 of 30 rated it a buy and zero rated it a sell.”

Last quarter VMware reported a growth of about 32 percent in revenue to $941.9 million. Alex Williams pointed out how the shift that has been increasingly affecting software vendors also reached the virtualization provider, which saw a great deal of expansion in  cloud services.

EMC will hold its own earnings call on the 24thof January, just a day after VMware’s. The storage solutions maker is also expected to report rather strong results, driven by new cloud initiatives and backed by satisfactory earnings in the pasts previous quarters. Investors will be looking at both companies when considering EMC’s performance.