“Customers expecting that will not be disappointed, and it’s coming soon” said Joe Tucci, the chief executive of EMC during his company’s earnings call today. Tucci was referring to a decline in demand for high-end storage equipment; what EMC says is a direct result of companies supposedly holding off their purchases in anticipation of a new product due later this year.

CFO David Goulden noted during the conference that revenue coming from the high-end market “has been growing faster than normal for the past couple of years,” and that it is only now returning to normal levels. The fact EMC’s midrange sales rose 26 percent this quarter added some validation to that statement.

“”To some extent, they’re going through a natural transition where more growth is coming from the midtier as well as from acquisitions,” FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives said. “But we can’t just look at a one-quarter miss by a hair and say that puts a dent in the story.”

While EMC’s revenue failed to please, the company’s profit certainly didn’t, coming in at 26 percent higher than the same period last year. That’s $586.8 million, or 27 cents a share compared, with the $477.1 million / 21 cents a share it reported 12 months ago.

The vendor’s tiny wobble in its financial performance comes alongside a promise of a new product, only about a week after the debut of VSPEX. The offering is a cloud architecture (available in multiple configurations) that mixes together equipment and software from multiple providers of hardware, networking gear and software. The purpose is to open up the option of an on-premise cloud deployment to a broader range of clients and partners, which were a big focus in this launch.