US telecom giant AT&T (T) has reportedly expanded its portfolio of premium cloud-based solutions with an innovative cloud computing service that delivers on-demand computing through a self-service approach over the company’s reliable and highly secured network cloud platform. The service called “AT&T Synaptic Compute as a Service" will offer businesses of all sizes on-demand access to computing resources based on their requirements.  Customers can use the service to quickly address immediate demands for variable computing processing power and increase capacity according to their business needs. The service will be officially launched in the US during fourth-quarter 2009 and will be expanded across select international markets in due course.  Cloud computing is a process of computing where tasks are assigned to a combination of connections, software and services (jointly forming the “Cloud") which can be accessed over a network. Cloud computing is gradually gaining momentum as industry ...

Strong financial performance in the most recent quarter and continued growth in results despite a challenging economy have led Standard & Poor's (S&P) Rating Services to raise Red Hat Inc.’s  (RHT) corporate credit rating from BB to BB+.   Red Hat is a leader in open source software solutions and has been upgraded thrice in less than two years. The company believes that it is still in the early stages of growth and has tremendous growth opportunity beyond 2010.   We believe the company’s strong market position, focused execution, strong balance sheet, impressive cash flow, international expansion and proven value proposition will help grow its business in the near term and deliver strong revenue growth beyond fiscal 2010.   We remain positive on the company’s long-term growth given its robust performance, driven by the record bookings and billings, substantial recurring revenue stream and growth in deferred revenues.  ...

To expand the analytics and optimization business, IT giant International Business Machines (IBM) announced the opening of a new IBM Analytics Solutions center in Washington D.C., the sixth analytics center in a row built by the company worldwide.  The center has been built to assist federal agencies and other public sector organizations to help clients optimize individual business decisions, processes and business models and manage risk and fraud. The customers will also be able to deliver improved services.  The Analytics Solution center will draw upon the knowledge and expertise of more than 400 local employees, with plans for an additional 100 analytics specialists. The center will use IBM’s capabilities in streaming technologies, mathematical algorithms, and modeling.  The company is working on various analytics projects with government agencies. For example, IBM is working with the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to modernize the planning, programming, budgeting ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 10, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA), Oracle Corp. (ORCL), International Business Machines (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Microsoft (MSFT).

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Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst Blog:

JAVA Earnings Beat, Sales Lag

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA) reported results for the first quarter of fiscal 2010 in an SEC filing. Lower operating expenses and higher gross margin helped the company lower its first quarter GAAP loss to $120 million, or 16 cents per share from

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Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA) reported results for the first quarter of fiscal 2010 in an SEC filing. Lower operating expenses and higher gross margin helped the company lower its first quarter GAAP loss to $120 million, or 16 cents per share from a loss of $1.68 billion or $2.24 per share reported in the year-ago period and beating the Zacks Consensus estimate of a loss of 23 cents per share.  Earnings on a non-GAAP basis (excluding one-time items) rose to 2 cents per share in the quarter from a net loss of 8 cents per share in the year-ago period. Gross margin improved to 43.4% from 40.2% a year ago. Operating expenses were down 62.3% year over year, as a result of which operating margin improved to -4.5% from -55.2% in the year-ago quarter.  However, total revenue fell 25% to $2.24 billion, with both Products and ...

Salesforce.com (CRM) has entered into a strategic business deal with Adobe Systems Incorporated (ADBE), whereby the entities will combine the cloud computing power of the Force.com with the Adobe Flash Platform in order to offer the customer a high quality Internet experience in the cloud. The combined service is presented as Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com, which will improve the end consumer Internet experience, as well as improve the productivity of web developers.  This is another example of Salesforce.com’s diversification of its service offerings, utilizing the cloud computing platform. This time it is targeted at web developers, a rapidly growing market the world over. Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com is a powerful tool, which helps to produce cloud-based rich Internet applications (RIA), which can be easily used by the end users through the Adobe Flash Player and browser or can be directly accessed on the desktop ...

In a filing with the SEC, Sun Microsystems Inc. (JAVA) announced to cut its headcount by 3,000 or 10% over the next 12 months, given the delay in getting European Commission clearance for its merger with Oracle Corp. (ORCL).  Sun said that the job cuts will affect all of the company’s major regions, including North America, Europe, Asia and emerging markets. The company expects to incur $75 – $125 million in restructuring charges over the next several quarters. The company said it will record the majority of the charges in the second and third quarters of fiscal 2010.  Oracle, the largest software company, had proposed the acquisition of Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion ($9.50 a share), which has been slowed by an ongoing antitrust review in Europe and the company is still waiting for clearance by the European Commission.  The delay in approval from the ...

Advance Micro Devices (AMD) started implementation of its new marketing program this month. Implementation is expected to be carried out in phases over the next four quarters. The new program, dubbed the Fusion Partner Program, is a consolidation of the existing four partner programs into a single interface.  Under the new program, AMD divides the channel into three—Elite, Premier and Select. The best selling partners of all-AMD solutions (CPU, GPU and chipset) will be placed in the Elite category, the second best in the Premier category and the balance in the Select category. Each category is further split according to the business model followed by partners—e-tailer, retailer, commercial solution provider, consumer solution provider or commercial volume reseller.  This categorization of the partners’ businesses would enable AMD to gauge the performance of the partners as well as the nature of demand at end-customers served by them. This, ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 9, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: International Business Machines (IBM), Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

IBM Faces Antitrust Hurdle

International Business Machines (IBM) has been charged by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a non-profit trade group organized by IBM’s rivals Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL). The allegation is directed at its Mainframe computer business, which is taking

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International Business Machines Corp. (...