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).

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 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 ...

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 ...

At an event in San Jose, Mr. Larry Ellison, the Chief Executive and Chairman of Oracle Corp. (ORCL), the largest software company said that its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA) for $7.4 billion ($9.50 a share) 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 regulatory body is causing Sun Micro to lose about $100 million each month. The major issue lingers on Oracle's potential acquisition of Sun's MySQL – an open-source database software which overlaps Oracle’s own database software. This could smother competition in the database software industry. However, Mr. Ellison said the deal is expected to be cleared by European regulators, despite the delay. It still remains unclear how long the European approval would take. While it is being speculated that Oracle ...

Despite earlier this week announcing disappointing first-quarter results, Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) says it expects its second quarter will be stronger. However, many analysts are skeptical, as the company’s attempted takeover of Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: JAVA) has not gone as smoothly as planned.

Oracle reported revenue for the three months ended Aug. 31 fell 5%, to $5.05 billion. Analysts were expecting $5.2 billion of sales.

Net income rose 4% to $1.1 billion, or 22 cents a share, by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), but the company leaned heavily on support contracts and cost cutting to maintain profitability. The world’s second-largest software maker blamed the drop on declining overseas sales and a stronger U.S. dollar.

“Oracle’s results were impacted by the reduced value of foreign currencies when compared to U.S. dollars, reducing Q1 GAAP earnings by $0.02 per share,” the company said. “Without this impact, Oracle’s Q1

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RightNow Technologies Inc. (RNOW) recently agreed to buy enterprise-class social platform provider HiveLive Inc. The acquisition will combine RightNow’s on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) solution with HiveLive’s innovative platform for customer support, engagement and loyalty, and ideation communities to help organizations maximize every opportunity to deliver great customer experiences.

The deal will help RightNow to deliver the broadest social CRM solution in the marketplace. The HiveLive platform will be immediately available after close of the acquisition.

Online communities and social networking sites are becoming a critical source of information when consumers make purchase decisions or seek service and support. Most organizations strive not only to participate in social conversations, but to integrate those conversations into internal business processes and tap them for design ideas.

The HiveLive platform complements RightNow Cloud Monitor by empowering organizations not only to monitor the social web but actually facilitate their own communities. HiveLive

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SAP AG (SAP) recently launched new community network offerings such as additional Business Process Expert (BPX) communities dedicated to understanding International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), implementing SAP Business Suite 7 software and supporting the newly announced PlaNet Finance partnership.

SAP will now serve as an OpenID provider, which will enable easier access to the large network of partners and other resources offered by the SAP community network.

Technological enhancements have improved the user experience for community network members by making searches and access to content easier. With the introduction of the SAP community network's OpenID, members can use Single Identity managed by OpenID foundation to access multiple Web sites with one sign-on. Members will have the convenience of using the same identity to log onto different sites, which simplifies the overall experience by eliminating the need to remember multiple passwords and user names.

The success of the SAP

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 24, 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: Oracle Corp. (ORCL), Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA), International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO).

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 Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Oracle Gets Approval to Buy Sun

The largest software company, Oracle Corp. (ORCL) announced that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has approved its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA). The approval from the DOJ was much anticipated.

In June,

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A recent survey indicates that corporates may increase their software purchase, although the recovery is not expected to be very fast. The survey particularly showed improvement in software segments like, Virtualization, Data Storage and Business Intelligence.   Out of the total 1768 respondents, 12% are of the opinion that their company will increase spending on software over the next 90 days, a marginal improvement from the previous survey. Around 22% believe that their organization will continue to spend less, a 5% improvement from the previous survey. Now coming to capital allocated by companies for IT spending, 9% of the respondents stated that their IT spending budget has been increased over the last 90 days, up 3% over the previous survey, while 30% stated that there is a downward revision in IT capital spending, a 6% improvement over the previous survey.   Now in the software categories, 17% of the ...

SAP AG (SAP) recently announced the successful transition of all software solution partners to the SAP PartnerEdge program. The company also said it would provide a wide array of innovative business services and tools to additional partner types in the SAP partner ecosystem.

Launched in 2005, SAP PartnerEdge program is a comprehensive business framework that provides business-enabling tools, resources and program benefits to foster prolific partnerships and consistent service quality for a wide variety of SAP partner types.

With one central framework, members of the SAP PartnerEdge program can effortlessly get a range of new offerings and benefits designed to serve the needs of an assortment of partner relationships. Among other benefits, the program aids members with access to the partner services advisor offering, delivered through four centers across the world, in 11 languages to more than 2,700 partners 24 hours a day, five days a week.

Another

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