Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

Market conditions are harsh and we are all low on cash, or atleast want to hold on to our wallets. VMware has been immune to in back in 2007, but this is too hard to withstand for any firm. RBC Capital this morning got religion on the slowdown in IT spending, cutting ratings on four stocks and slashing estimates and price targets on a host of others. The multiple moves boil down to this statement, which is repeated in most of the individual reports this morning: “We are taking a more conservative stance across our coverage universe to reflect a degrading environment for global IT spending.” The downgrades: * VMware (VMW): To Sector Perform from Outperform. Target to $29 from $50. * Xyratex (XRTX): To Sector Perform from Outperform. Target to $13 from $23. * Voltaire (VOLT): To Sector Perform from Outperform. Target to $5 from $8. * QLogic (QLGC): To Sector Perform from Outperform. Target to $17 from $18 Barrons

Greene was replaced by Paul Maritz, a former Microsoft executive. Maritz addressed attendees at VMware's annual VMworld conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, and laid out a strategy for the company that focuses on virtual desktop computers, virtual cloud computing and virtual data center operations. Katherine Egbert, an analyst with Jeffries & Co., said in a research note that while VMware's plans provide a good framework for new product development and growth, they "will take several years to achieve." Egbert, who cut her target price on VMware's stock to $30 a share from $40, said the company appears to be challenged by reports that many of its developers are leaving the company, and the competition coming from Microsoft's HyperV virtualization technology. At Citigroup, analyst Brent Thill echoed some of Egbert's thoughts about Microsoft, saying that the company's presence in the market "may be having an economic impact" on VMware, even ...

I don't have a lot to say about Fastenal, but I'm psyched to see salesforce.com earn a spot on the S&P 500 roster. Bravo, Standard & Poor's. "You still have to go a long way to find the last Internet stock added to the index," I wrote last month, when new media splitter IAC (Nasdaq: IACID) was replaced by mutual fund giant Invesco (NYSE: IVZ). The index replaced a dot-com company with a financial-services player a month ago. It's fitting that it should reverse that order this time around. salesforce.com is a pretty amazing company, revolutionizing the enterprise software industry by providing cheaper Web-based solutions to standard customer relationship management applications. It's become the poster child for cloud computing. Instead of software that sits on individual PCs' hard drives, its growing number of server-stored programs makes computing truly portable. Tim Beyers recommended Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to Rule Breakers subscribers earlier ...

Corel Corporation (NASDAQ:CREL)(TSX:CRE), a leading developer of graphics, productivity and digital media software ("Corel"), today responding to previous reports, and consistent with its press release issued Monday, August 18th, which indicated that its Special Committee had "identified" strategic alternatives, stated that it is in discussions with a third party regarding a potential sale of Corel. No agreement has been reached regarding a sale of Corel and there can be no assurance that such an agreement will be reached. In addition, there can be no assurance that any transaction will be completed or, if completed, of its terms, price or timing. For a discussion of many of the risks and uncertainties pertaining to ownership of Corel shares, please refer to Corel's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended November 30, 2007, on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Source

This is indeed shocking for HP ( NYSE:HP ). HP has a big challenge of integrating EDS and the time it needs to do it will also tell how many new contracts they can keep. In this deal HP was supposed to dave $1 Billion for its (now lost) client. I guess people in DT got smarter and did the math themselves. These days a lot of firms are asking for independent advise. In the past months I have done a lot of calls myself to discuss deal that were as big as $500 Million to some multi-billion mergers/acquisitions. So why would someone ask a lone ranger, a nutcase blogger about it for advise. The answer was simple: They preferred to invest horizontally and vertically across several domains rather than just asking Gartner or any other advisor firm. A lot of firms lately are taking advise from independent consultants and advisors. Obviously I do feel proud at times when I see an international announcement of a merger, acquisition or other investment is where I participated as well. Anyways back...

Take 2 executives who were frustrated at Microsoft and put them together in an opportunity to compete, and watch out. Microsoft now not only has to compete on technical and marketing with VMware, they need to compete against their executive team on strategy. I’ve searched for Charles’s presence in VMware, but he is hidden which means either he is busy inside VMware or my facts are wrong. If I had to place a bet, Charles is staying under the radar not telling anyone what he is planning at VMware. Update 9:19a, Aug 7, 2008. I missed Mary Jo’s post that had the tip of Charles at PiCorp. According to a few different sources who asked not to be named, Maritz has hired Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft’s former head of Platform Strategy, to work at Smart Desktop, a division of Martiz’s Pi Corp. Fitzgerald resigned from Microsoft in January 2008 and neither Microsoft nor Fitzgerald himself would comment on where he was going. (I tried contacting Smart Desktop to see if Fitzgerald was hired, t...