By Jason Simpkins Managing Editor Money Morning

While its chief competitor Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) is laboring to smooth out the wrinkles in its merger with Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: JAVA), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) is streamlining its core business and fulfilling its mandate for innovation.

IBM – which had itself attempted to by Sun but balked at the hefty price tag – has been spared the regulatory scrutiny that comes with trying to merge to large global businesses. And instead of complicating its business, IBM is getting back to its roots in mainframes and virtualization – which means focusing on storing and processing data.

In fact, IBM recently announced the release of 10 new software products all designed to improve the performance and increase the cost efficiency of its System Z mainframe.

“We’ve seen improvements in scale in our zSeries mainframes running

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MicroStrategy Inc. (...

Conversion Services International Inc. provides consulting, data warehousing, business intelligence and information technology services to Global 2000 organizations and other businesses. The company today announced its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2009.

Conversion Services posted net income at $1.3 million, $1.2 million of which is attributable to common shareholders. This is compared to a net loss of $4.2 million and a loss of $4.4 million attributable to shareholders for the third quarter of 2008.

Revenues for the third quarter of 2009 were $8.1 million, up $3.1 million, or 61.7 percent, from $5.0 million reported in the same period last year. Gross profit of $2.9 million for the quarter increased by $1.6 million as compared to gross profit of $1.3 million for the third quarter of 2008.

Lori Cohen, president and CEO of Conversion Services, said the company’s efforts to improve its balance sheet paid off and that it

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This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Business Intelligence: Marc Faber has short term concerns about commodities, says gold may drop to US$800, November 6, 2009. Marc Faber the Swiss fund manager and Gloom Boom & Doom editor said he has some short-term concerns about commodity prices including gold. He is also reluctant to invest in bonds.

• Aline van Duyn (Financial Times): Why dollar carry trade faces hidden dangers, November 7, 2009. Most investors agree that it is out there. What is less clear is how big it is, or how worried investors should be about it. The “it” in question is the dollar carry trade. This is an investment strategy that has recently been extremely profitable and as a result has become increasingly popular.

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Advanced Visual Systems Inc., a data visualization software innovator, announced today that it will be spinning off a new technology for monitoring and managing Enterprise IT and revenue networks. The company is in discussion with several potential partners and anticipates the debut of the spin off before year-end.

The new entity, in which AVS will hold a significant stake, will be known as VizStar. The spinoff will develop comprehensive solutions for Enterprise use with AVS’s well-established OpenViz technology which has been widely applied in the fields of business intelligence, customer analytics and risk management and is highly suited to visualize sophisticated real-time Enterprise operations.

David M. Murray, President of AVS, stated, “Based upon our experience working with several visionary Enterprise accounts, we see an emerging demand for real-time solutions that reveal the hidden stresses and inefficiencies of large corporate IT and revenue networks.

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International Business Machines (IBM) plans to lower costs for its clients via its offerings, which is posing a major challenge to businesses due to the difficult economic scenario.   Thus IBM released new IT Asset Management software to help companies manage the costs brought on by the proliferation of IT assets such as mobile devices, laptops, printers, switches, sensors and billions of interconnected devices.  The software also helps control the complexity of software licensing and increased pace of compliance audits.   The company expects software license reuse and audit exposure savings of $3 million in 2009 and $5 million annually starting from 2010 if a company implements a software license management program using IBM’s IT Asset Management software.   In order to reduce cost, IBM announced research collaboration with the Industrial Development Agency of Ireland (IDA Ireland) to develop and expand its Risk Management Analytics capabilities in Ireland....

Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts!

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Friday October 16, 2009

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MicroStrategy® Incorporated (Nasdaq: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence (BI) software, today announced its free reporting software package for departmental BI applications. MicroStrategy Reporting Suite enables companies to use MicroStrategy’s integrated BI platform to develop and deploy premium, Web-based reporting applications, at no cost.

Cancer Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCBB: CTHP), an emerging biotechnology business incubator with a specific emphasis on disruptive cancer treatments and nanotechnology, announced today it has signed a letter of intent to acquire

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Wednesday September 30, 2009

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Cardo Medical (OTCBB:CDOM), a company engaged in the development of orthopedic medical devices, announces the introduction and first successful implantation of the Align 360(TM) Total Knee system. The initial release will follow with a commercial release to an expanded surgeon network over the upcoming quarters. Cardo Medical recently commercialized its Total Knee system as an adjunct to its Align 360 Knee platform which consists of its clinically proven Uni-Compartmental Knee system and its Patello-Femoral Knee system. All three “A

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Advanced Visual Systems Inc., an innovator of data visualization software and solutions, announced this morning that its common stock began trading on the OTC Pink Sheets on September 15, 2009. The company, founded in 1991, develops and markets powerful technology used by corporations, software makers and research organizations to add graphically-rich analysis features to business intelligence systems, corporate dashboards, research projects and high performance computing programs.

Data visualization converts corporate, technical and scientific information into highly expressive graphics that allow many dimensions of data to be viewed simultaneously, revealing patterns, trends and anomalies that can be difficult to detect using traditional forms of analysis. Working with over 2,000 clients (including twenty percent of the Fortune 100) since its formation, AVS’ five core software products are used in a vast array of industries and helped revolutionize the way that decisions are made.

According to

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MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) received a brokerage upgrade today, which helped its share price rise approximately 6% during a dreary morning session.

< ?DART(15);?> MSTR is a global leader in business intelligence (BI) technology, providing businesses with integrated reporting, analysis and monitoring software.

It is part of the computer-software industry. There are 3 other names from this space on today's 222-stock Zacks #1 Rank List: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (CTSH), Quest Software, Inc. (QSFT) and Sourcefire, Inc. (FIRE).

In addition to the upgrade, MSTR has beaten the Zacks Consensus Estimate in 3 of the last 4 quarters. Earnings estimates remain well above levels from 2 months ago.

Volume today is about 220,000 shares, marking a solid advance over the daily average of about 73,000.

Earnings Estimates

There are 7 covering analysts for each this year and next. The Zacks

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