Operating profits are up 27 percent and revenue is up 13 percent from last year, but net profit is down 7 percent Helped by double-digit sales growth in PCs and software from its Mercury Interactive acquisition, Hewlett-Packard reported a 27 percent increase in operating profit on a 13 percent rise in revenue in fiscal second quarter financial results released Wednesday. But net profit slipped by 7 percent from the same quarter last year.HP reported net income of $1.8 billion, or $0.65 a share, on revenue of $25.5 billion, for the three months that ended April 30, compared to net profit of $1.9 billion, or $0.66 a share on revenue of $22.55 billion in the second quarter of 2006. Operating profit came in at $2.1 billion.Net profit from the same quarter last year was affected by a favorable tax ruling by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service that added $0.15 cents to HP’s earnings per share. Revenue for its Personal Systems Group rose 24 percent to $8.7 billion, including notebook computer sales growth of 45 percent, for the most recent quarter reported.The HP Software Group had revenue growth of 54 percent to $523 million. HP didn’t own Mercury in the second quarter of last year.HP had mixed results in its Enterprise Storage and Servers group. Overall segment revenue growth was 8 percent, but industry standard servers growth was 17 percent, led by blade server growth of 58 percent. HP also reported 60 percent growth in sales of servers based on the Itanium processors it co-developed with Intel. But that growth was offset by declines in sales of servers running HP’s PA-RISC (Precision Architecture-Reduced Instruction Set Computing) processors and servers with the Alpha processors developed by Digital Equipment Co., which HP obtained through acquisitions. Storage revenue grew by only 1 percent as a 10 percent increase in sales of HP’s midrange EVA storage systems was offset by declines in higher-end storage arrays and in tape storage products.While calling it a “strong second quarter,” Mark Hurd, HP’s CEO, chairman and president, said the pressure on cost-containment at the company will continue. “We’re still transitioning, and we are not close to being done.”Three months ago, HP announced it would stop funding its defined benefit pension program for employees as of Jan. 1, 2008, and will offer some workers an early retirement incentive. On Wednesday, HP CFO Cathie Lesjak said 3,000 HP employees have agreed to take the early retirement program and will leave HP by May 31. HP’s global workforce, as reported in its annual report, is 156,000. Hurd, on a conference call with stock analysts, declined to comment on published reports that rival Dell would start selling its desktop and notebook computers through the retail sales channel. Dell, which primarily sells through catalogs, phone orders, or its Web site, fell behind HP in personal computer sales in 2006, according to IDC.“They do what’s best for their customers and we do what’s best for our customers,” Hurd said.This story was updated on May 16, 2007 Correction: The updated version of this story misstated the name of Intel’s Itanium processor. The article has been amended. Technology Industry