Shares of Dell Inc jumped in late trading after the firm’s profit of the fourth-quarter surpassed estimates and the company made its way in the market for data centers.

Except from some costs, the company’s profit was fifty three cents in the quarter, which ended Jan. 28, Dell, the Round Rock, Texas-based firm said yesterday. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey had estimated thirty seven cents on average. The company also tells about its annual sales growth that is more than its projections.

The third-biggest PC maker Dell is banking on a boom in cloud computing to help steer its next series of growth. Michael Dell, the Chief Executive Officer has taken the help of acquisitions to offer a broader range of software, storage, security and services, which often carry higher profit margins than PCs. The company expects to make more deals in an effort to double sales from the data-center business to thirty billion dollars.

The focus of the company has really shifted to these other areas and away from the PC, as stated by Dell over a conference call. If fiscal year 2011 was stressed for becoming operationally fit, then fiscal year 2012 will be focused on leveraging this strength.

Shares of Dell went up by 8.6 percent to hit fifteen dollars and ten cents yesterday in extended trading, after the report came out. The stock went up by 2.7 percent in this year and had closed at thirteen dollars and ninety one cents on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

The company’s founder, Michael Dell, has devoted the last four years for turning around the business after growth stopped and it lost its leading position in PC market to Hewlett-Packard Co. Dell, rather than trying to regain its crown in that market, he’s sought to diversify the business.