Two Earnings Miss: Autodesk (NASDAQ:ADSK) & salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM)

Design software firm Autodesk, Inc.(NASDAQ:ADSK), after reporting disappointing second quarter results, said it was cutting 500 jobs in response to the weak demand in the economy and as part of its restructuring efforts.

For the quarter to July 31, the company posted revenue of $569 million, up just 4 percent from a year ago, and well below Street estimates at $593.4 million. Non-GAAP profits of 48 cents a share were marginally below the Street estimate of 49 cents.

Guidance had been for revenue of $580 million to $600 million and 46-51 cents a share.

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“Our own execution challenges, combined with an uneven global economy, resulted in disappointing revenue results for the quarter,” CEO Carl Bass said in a statement.

“Organizational changes we made within the company earlier this year slowed us down during the quarter. Despite our second quarter results, the changes better position Autodesk to meet the needs of our customers. We are focused on working through our internal challenges as rapidly as possible.”

For the third quarter Autodesk sees revenue of $550 million to $570 million and non-GAAP profits of 40-45 cents a share, falling short of Street consensus at $601.2 million and 50 cents.

For the full year revenue growth has been pared to between 4 and 6 percent, against Street estimates of 9.7 percent.

Shares of the company slumped 22.50% to $27.70 in pre-market trading.

Meanwhile cloud-computing company salesforce.com, inc.(NYSE:CRM ) reported a loss i its second quarter that was more than double of what it had reported a year earlier with costs rising faster than revenues.

The loss in the three months to July 31 came to $9.8 million, or 7 cents per share, compared to a loss of $4.3 million, or 3 cents per share, a year ago.

Excluding the cost of compensating executives with stock and other items, adjusted earnings came to 42 cents per share, beating the 39 cents expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue rose 34 percent to $732 million, also beating the $728 million expected.

For the current quarter, the company forecast adjusted earnings of 31 cents to 32 cents per share, which is below the 34 cents analysts were looking for.

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It expects third-quarter revenue of $773 million to $777 million, which evenly bracketed the average $770 million expected by analysts.

Shares of CRM slid 4.10% to $140.75.