At the end of one of the worst days in the history of Wall Street, when every metric ultimately reacted like acid eating through a thin plate of copper, Dell posted its third-quarter results, returning a surprise 9% increase in EPS on deflated revenues and net earnings apparently because of stock buybacks.

The company made no quantitative forecast. It only said that it believes global end-user demand “will continue to be challenging” and that it would focus on optimizing “liquidity, profitability and growth,” particularly profitability.

It continues to focus on five growth areas: notebooks, enterprise, global consumer, SMBs and emerging markets.

CEO Michael Dell said virtualization is “key.” The company wants to expand its server coverage. Server sales were down.

The company expects to continue to incur costs as it realigns and that of course means more job cuts. Dell is already down 8,500 people, but wouldn’t rise to the bait about more layoff when asked during the conference call. There’s a hiring freeze in effect with selective exceptions.

Dell said it did 37 cents in the October quarter, a total of $727 million, the net down 5% year-over-year, on revenues of $15.2 billion in the quarter, short expectations by a billion dollars.

Wall Street figured the best Dell could return was 31 cents but on revenues of $16.2 billion.

Dell said it managed to cut operating expenses by 11% year-over-year.

It attributed its earnings performance to “disciplined cost management and an improved mix of products and services.”

It claims its business model “adapts quickly to economic changes even the kind of significant challenge we saw in the third quarter,” a statement itself likely to be challenged.

What it seems to mean is that Dell is selling more servers, storage, services and software and peripherals, which now account for more than a third of its revenue and profit.

Dell said its revenue was down 3% on unit shipment growth of 3%. Operating income improved 22% to $1 billion, or 6.7% of revenue, in part because of lighter bonuses, with a gross margin of 18.8%, up 0.3% that it attributes to mix, lower component costs and cost reductions. Operating expenses were 12.1% of revenue, an 11% decline on a dollar basis from a year ago. The strength of the dollar presents a problem.

The company ended the quarter with 2,200 fewer people than in Q2 and down 9% from a year ago.

Dell CFO Brian Gladden claimed, “The velocity of Dell’s business model typically gives us an early view to demand signals, ahead of competitors. This visibility gives us a strategic advantage to quickly adapt our cost structure and approach.”

The only other company claiming some sort of visibility these days is HP, which isn’t the same head-to-head competitor of Dell that it used to be.

Dell said global demand slowed through October, resulting in a negative cash flow of $86 million.

Year-to-date, Dell’s cash flow from operations was $1.2 billion and it ended the quarter with $8.9 billion in the bank.

Fiscal Q3 revenue from outside the US accounted for 48% of Dell’s total revenue, with the BRIC countries up 20% on the revenue and 43% on shipments. They accounted for 9% of Dell’s global revenue.

Dell managed to tickle an 8% increase in operating income out of its commercial business though revenues dropped 6% to $12.3 billion. Laptops, the king of PCs, were flat and desktops off 8%. Server units declined 4% and storage revenue was flat. Enhanced services revenue, largely driven by Dell’s commercial business, was up 7% to $1.4 billion.

Americas Commercial dropped 8% in revenue and 14% in units though operating income improved.

Dell’s EMEA commercial business dropped 5% in revenue on flat shipments. Operating income was up 62%.

In APJ, Dell’s commercial business, bless its heart, was up 2% in revenue and 15% in shipments with operating income up over 60%.

Dell’s global consumer business increased revenue 10% to $2.8 billion on a 32% increase in unit shipments because of new retail sales. Notebooks were up 67%, desktops down 20%.

Its $112 million operating income was 4% of sales compared to a loss a year ago. Dell said it was the highest level of profitability for this business in 13 quarters. Operating margins were 1.7% of revenue thanks in part to a 24% reduction in operating-expenses.

Dell figures it needs new products and more distribution to get to the consumer.