Just one day before Dell Technologies Inc. finally completes its takeover of EMC Corp., the company issued second-quarter results for its fiscal 2017.

The company reported almost-flat revenues of $13.1 billion in the three months up to July 29, up just 1 percent from a year ago. Operating income was $63 million, a big improvement from the $103 million loss the company posted a year ago. Dell also reported it’s sitting on $7.5 billion of cash reserves and investments, up from $1.2 billion in the first quarter.

Of note is that Dell’s commercial personal computer revenues grew by 6.2 percent year-over-year, while sales of consumer PCs were also up, by 1.1 percent in terms of unit market share. The firm’s server and networking revenues also grew by a single percentage point, while store sales rose by 13 percent compared with the previous quarter.

As a private company, Dell isn’t compelled to release any financial figures, so it seems the move was done for the benefit of analysts ahead of Wednesday’s news that it’s closing its $67 billion merger with EMC. The company has scheduled a press conference for Wednesday morning, during which it’s also likely to discuss its financials in more detail. In the meantime, Dell’s Chief Financial Officer Tom Sweet made a rather bullish statement in spite of the less than spectacular results.

“We executed well in the quarter,” Sweet insisted. “Our second quarter results underscore our ability to consistently balance growth and profitability, and strategically invest in areas that will drive long-term profitable growth and strong cash flow. In the quarter, cash flow from operations was $1.9bn and for the trailing twelve months was $3.2bn, an improvement of 50 per cent.”

While Dell’s results are by no means bad, they aren’t stellar either. As such, they may raise further questions about quickly Dell will be able to service the enormous debt it’s taking on to fund the EMC merger.

Dell Technologies Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Dell recently talked about what the future holds for Dell and EMC in an interview on theCUBE, owned by the same company as SiliconANGLE:

Image credit: theCUBE/SiliconANGLE