Goldman Sachs has updated its three “Technology Framework Lists,” which include its top five growth picks, its top five tech value plays, and–sadly–its five least favorite tech names.
When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
Or at least that’s why they do in the technology business.
In what seems like a fairly optimistic note in these gloomy times, some companies are taking advantage of reduced valuations to pick up strategic assets at prices that undoubtedly are a lot lower than they would have been even a few months earlier.
Yes, it sure is nice to see stock prices flashing green. But despite the market’s historic two-day move, there are still reasons to worry about what happens to technology shares over the next several quarters.
Tomorrow afternoon, the stock market will turn its weary eyes to you, Larry Ellison.
After the close Thursday, Oracle (ORCL) will report results for its fiscal first quarter ended August. The company’s previous guidance was for revenue to be up 18-20 percent on a year-over-year basis, with new software license revenue up 10-20 percent.
Oracle this afternoon named Jeff Epstein as its new CFO. Safra Catz gives up the CFO title, but remains president. Epstein will report to Catz.
If you think Oracle’s acquisition spree is nearly completed, you ought to guess again.
In a research report, Bernstien Research analyst Charles DiBona today asserts that Oracle is almost certainly going to continue spending billions on additional acquisitions. He notes that CEO Larry Ellison last summer projected that the company would hit $50 billion in annual revenue by FY 2012.
Oracle has enjoyed considerable success by rolling up the software side of the the now-mature client-server model of corporate computing. With its $13.9 billion acquisition of sluggish outsourcing giant EDS, Hewlett-Packard is playing the same game on the services side. It’s buying vast tracts of data-center space in which run the computers and other IT machinery that power the operations of lots of large companies and government agencies. The addition of EDS more than doubles the size of HP’s services business, giving it a scale closer to that of the leading IT outsourcing company, IBM.
Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang has not resorted to boorish tactics like calling Steve Ballmer a sociopath or comparing him to Genghis Khan, but his determination to fight off an unsolicited merger with Microsoft at all costs is starting to recall Craig Conway’s ill-fated battle with his former boss at Oracle, Larry Ellison.
Jerry Yang must be starting to understand how Alfred Chuang of BEA Systems felt when Larry Ellison of Oracle came calling last year. Like Chuang, the Yahoo boss has just been landed with a takeover offer at such a big premium that he can’t possibly just ignore it. Also like Chuang, the options for other deals–or for staying independent–are shrinking fast. Here are the other partnerships or alliances that Yang could have grabbed at in the last year or so, and the chances that he can turn to them again now as he looks for an alternative to Microsoft …
Oracle had another tremendous quarter, thanks again to its strategy of acquiring smaller software companies. But we wonder: How much longer can Oracle CEO Larry Ellison keep it up? Oracle recorded $5.3 billion in revenue in the second quarter of its fiscal 2008, up 28% from the $4.2 billion it made in the same quarter last year. Net income rose 35% to $1.3 billion from $967 million the year-ago quarter.
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