Unisys, based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, rose 31 percent to $26.30 at the close in New York, the biggest gain since April 17, 2009. The stock had dropped 23 percent this year before Tuesday.

Third-quarter profit excluding some items advanced to $1.63 a share, more than double the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Analysts had forecast 77 cents.

The company said growth in its non-U.S. Federal IT outsourcing business and higher sales in industry solutions offset a decline in its U.S. Federal business. In the latter unit, “market conditions remain challenging,” Chief Executive Officer Edward Coleman said in a statement Monday.

“Unisys is a big beneficiary of the change toward cloud computing,” said Ned Davis, an analyst with WM Smith &Co. in Denver, referring to data centers that run software on the Web instead of their own servers. “As companies move to the cloud, there is a host of security issues. And Unisys has a history providing security products.” His company doesn’t have a rating system.