SunPower Slows, But Obama’s Stimulus Should Help

After quarters of stellar growth, SunPower (NADSAQ:SPWRA) too seems to have been hit by the economic meltdown, and its earlier confidence in meeting projected numbers has wavered. In the recently announced Q1 results, revenues of $214 million fell by 22% over the year and came in far short of the market’s expected $269 million. EPS of $0.05 was also significantly short of the Street’s expected $0.24. >>>

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SanDisk, Seagate Stocks Recovering

Earlier this week, SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ:SNDK), the leading flash memory chipmaker with annual revenue of $3.35 billion, renewed its patent licensing agreement with Samsung that was to expire in August of this year. Last year, Samsung was trying to acquire SanDisk, which is struggling with huge losses. Also last year, there was speculation that Seagate might acquire SanDisk. Let’s take a closer look at both companies’ performances. >>>

ADP and Intuit Should Acquire Some SaaS

Last week, Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU) the leading accounting and tax software maker with annual revenue of $3.1 billion, reported a strong third quarter in which it beat estimates, driven by strong sales in Consumer Tax and growth in the small business customer base despite the tough economy. In the past few weeks there have been expressions of optimism in the news media and signs from companies such as Intel and Cisco that the economy is recovering. Let’s take a look at ADP’s and Intuit’s results for any such signs. >>>

EMC, VMWare Steady

EMC (NYSE:EMC) and VMWare (NYSE:VMW) recently announced their quarterly results. While they failed to meet some expectations, both companies’ managements were reasonably happy with their performances in this poor economy. >>>

HP Still Has $13 Billion In Cash

Yesterday Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), the leader in the PC market with annual revenue of $118.4 billion, reported second quarter results that were in line with estimates thanks to its cost-cutting efforts. While some companies like Cisco and Intel were signaling a stabilizing economy, HP reported a fall in sales and profit. >>>

Comcast Goes Digital

Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) was optimistic last quarter about its performance in the troubled economy, and the recently announced Q1 results are proof that this optimism wasn’t entirely unfounded. Q1 revenues of $8.84 billion grew 5% over the year and beat the market’s expected $8.76 billion. EPS of $0.27 was higher than the Street’s expected $0.23 and grew 11% over the year. >>>

Networking Sector: Changing Landscape

Early in the month, Cisco said that the networking industry is showing signs of stabilizing despite an 18% slump in sales. 3Com too has been showing signs of pulling off a turnaround. Nortel, however, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. And Brocade is likely an acquisition target. Let’s now analyze the performance of the remaining networking networking players of which F5 is the strongest, and Alcatel-Lucent the weakest. >>>

Online Travel Retrospective For Q1

The online travel majors recently announced impressive quarterly results for these troubled times. Priceline regained lost ground in terms of valuation and revenue growth and Expedia gained market share, but Orbitz continued to flounder. >>>

Incumbents And Innovators In SaaS

Yesterday we looked at the performances and acquisition prospects of SaaS players NetSuite, SuccessFactors, and Citrix. Let’s now take a closer look at their peers Omniture, Concur, and RightNow. >>>

Acquisition Prospects in SaaS

The global recession, which not surprisingly has forced companies to cut operating costs and streamline IT operations, has been something of a boon for the SaaS sector, with major companies turning to cloud computing. I expect to see acquisitions in the SaaS space this year. SaaS companies like NetSuite, SuccessFactors, and Citrix, which all recently reported solid quarters, are likely targets. Let’s take a closer look. >>>