EMC posted its third quarter earnings last week, which reflected the same weakening tren in corporate IT spending that hampered revenue for IBM and Microsoft for the same quarter.

EMC earned a net income of $626.3 million, or 28 cents a share, compared with the $605.6 million and 27 cents a share it reported for the same period last year. Revenue went up by 6 percent to $5.28 billion in Q2, a figure that’s significantly lower than Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $5.46 billion.

EMC slashed its full-year guidance as well. The storage giant expects to make $1.68 to $1.7 a share compared with the  solid $1.70 it predicted in July and the  $1.72 analysts have sought.  EMC sees sales reaching $21.6 billion to $21.75 billion by the end of 2012, slightly less than the $22 billion it expected in the second quarter.

Shebly Seyrafi, an analyst for FBN Securities, says that the vendor’s storage and hardware businesses are feeling the biggest impact. But at the same time, the EMC’s services group is staying ahead of the curve, thanks to a bit of data-driven innovation.

The division has been pushing R&D in the area of enterprise content management, developing a line of content-enabled solutions that address industry-specific requirements for several verticals.

Here’s a snippet from the earnings call:

“A recent example is our Integrated Patient Record solutions, which enables health care organizations to access, share and transform disparate patient data, regardless of format or location and, importantly, lower cost in doing so. Our software developed especially for engineering plants and facilities management is also gaining traction.”

In addition, the group landed a lucrative 5-year contract with a pharma firm that’s seeking to consolidate its infrastructure with a mix of Vblock, VMAX, VNX, Data Domain and Avamar.