WallStreetBlips - Latest Gartner News Articles

Novell FY Q4 EPS Beats; Q1 Rev View Misses

Thu, 3 Dec 2009 21:41:53 +0000

Novell (NOVL) reported revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter ended October 31 of $215.6 million, right in line with the Street at $215.7 million. Non-GAAP EPS of 11 cents a share beat the Street by four cents. The Linux and IT management software provider sees revenue for FY Q1 of $200 million to $210 million, shy of the Street at $214.2 million. The company sees non-GAAP operating margin in the quarter of 14%-16%, down from 17.1% in Q4. In late trading, NOVL is down 7 cents, or 1.7%, to $3.97.

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Cisco: Broadpoint Upgrades; Sees Multiple Expansion As Growth Resumes

Thu, 3 Dec 2009 15:17:57 +0000

Broadpoint.Amtech analyst Mark McKechnie has turned bullish on Cisco (CSCO) , boosting his rating on the shares to Buy from Neutral, and setting a $29 target. The stock closed yesterday at $23.87. The analyst lifted his EPS forecast for the July 2010 fiscal year by a penny to $1.43; for FY 2011 he goes to $1.65, from $1.58. (He’s in line with the Street for 2010, and a bit ahead of the consensus of $1.61 for 2011.) In a research note, McKechnie asserts that Cisco’s multiple is likely to expand as it returns to revenue and earnings growth starting in the January quarter. The analyst thinks we are at the beginning of an enterprise IT spending recovery, with early signs of a turnaround showing up in key U.S. verticals and in the public sector. He adds that Cisco has “improved its product position dramatically during the downturn in all key segments.” CSCO today is up 25 cents, or 1.1%, to $24.12.

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Electricity generation: No pinch of salt

Thu, 3 Dec 2009 10:55:30 +0000

The world’s first osmotic power station has just opened in Norway IT WAS one small movement for a royal finger—but it started a power station of a sort that has never been tried before. On November 24th, when Princess Mette-Marit of Norway pressed the red button, pumps started to hum, pressing freshwater from a river and saltwater from the nearby Skagerrak through an array of white steel cylinders. Then a turbine began to run inside a small, redbrick hall at Tofte, a few kilometres south-west of Oslo, and electric current emerged. The power in question was generated by osmosis. This is the tendency for water to pass through a membrane separating a weak solution from a strong one. This causes a build-up of pressure on one side of the membrane. ... >

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The repercussions of Dubai: Dishdashed

Thu, 3 Dec 2009 10:55:30 +0000

The first of three articles on Dubai’s debt crisis looks at the international reaction. Markets seem to have got over the shock, but there are still disturbing lessons “IT CAME FROM THE DESERT” was an early computer game in which townsfolk were subject to a surprise attack by an army of giant ants. The announcement of a debt standstill on November 25th by Dubai World, a conglomerate based in the desert emirate, was almost as effective in catching investors unaware. The problems of Dubai were already well known—witness reports of empty buildings, falling property prices and suspended construction projects. But markets previously seem to have assumed that Dubai’s debts would always be covered by Abu Dhabi, its neighbour and the richest of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). ... >

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Banks and information technology: Silo but deadly

Thu, 3 Dec 2009 10:55:29 +0000

Messy IT systems are a neglected aspect of the financial crisis NO INDUSTRY spends more on information technology (IT) than financial services: about $500 billion globally, more than a fifth of the total (see chart). Many of the world’s computers, networking and storage systems live in the huge data centres run by banks. “Banks are essentially technology firms,” says Hugo Banziger, chief risk officer at Deutsche Bank. Yet the role of IT in the crisis is barely discussed. It should be. Corporate IT systems—collections of computers, applications and databases—always tend to be messy, but those of banks are particularly bad. They were the first to adopt computers: decades-old mainframes are still in use. Lots of product innovation means new systems, as does merger activity, which has proliferated in the industry in recent years: Citigroup had a notoriously fragmented IT set-up going into the crisis. The need to comply with regulations, and the global presence of big ...

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Wipro: Need A Job? Move To India

Wed, 2 Dec 2009 16:06:53 +0000

Wipro (WIT) today said it plans to hire 5,000 people in the next 1-2 months, according to the Times of India . Girish Paranjpe , co-CEO of Wipro’s IT business, said the company expects “no further cuts” in IT budgets by its clients, and that 2010 should be a better year than 2009. The company has about 100,000 employees. WIT today is up 9 cents, at $20.56.

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Gartner To Buy AMR Research For $64 Million

Tue, 1 Dec 2009 14:25:41 +0000

Gartner (IT) , the tech research firm, said it has agreed to acquire AMR Research , a Boston-based provider of research and advisory services focused on the supply chain, for about $64 million in cash. The company said AMR is expected to have 2009 revenue of about $40 million. The deal will be funded with cash on hand and an existing credit line, and is expected to close by the end of the month. On a GAAP basis, Gartner says, the deal will be dilutive by 9-11 cents a share in 2010, and accretive by 1-4 cents a share in 2011. On a non-GAAP basis, the deal should be modestly accretive in 2010, while adding 4-6 cents a share to profits in 2011.

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Kidnapping in Nigeria: Go for the locals

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:40:33 +0000

A new scourge is afflicting the rich IT COULD not have happened to a more colourful character. Nkem Owoh, a Nollywood film star is famous for a song about financial fraud entitled “I Go Chop Your Dollar”. While driving along a highway in eastern Nigeria earlier this month, he was kidnapped. His abductors originally demanded 15m naira ($99,000). He was freed a week later for an unknown ransom, though the local press say the gang was beaten down to a mere 1.4m naira plus the actor’s fancy car. The abduction sounds like a far-fetched script from one of Nigeria’s popular outlandish films. But kidnapping is a serious business. Nabbing prominent Nigerians is becoming increasingly common, as gangs shift their focus from foreign oil workers to their own rich compatriots. ... >

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Pension planning: The retiree's autopilot

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:40:33 +0000

A new approach to an old-age problem IT IS a brave new world of personal responsibility. Private-sector companies have been abandoning their commitment to defined-benefit (DB) pension schemes, in which employees receive an income based on their final salary. The cost of the promise has been too great. But the replacement of DB schemes with defined-contribution (DC) plans hurts employees. Under a DB scheme, it was up to the employer to fill any hole in the fund caused by a market shortfall; in a DC plan, the employee bears all the market risk. If returns are disappointing then pensions will be, too. And employers often use the switch from DB to DC to cut their contributions. If less goes into the pot, less will come out. Employees in DC schemes can be at a loss when deciding how much to invest, where to put their money and what kind of pension to expect. To avoid this problem, many turn to “target date” funds, which invest in equities in the early years for growth and switch to safer ...

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Tackling Japan's debt: A load to bear

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:40:33 +0000

Japan is not yet doomed to debt-induced penury IT IS one of the hottest shows in town. People queue up, replace their shoes with slippers, and enter a gymnasium where TV cameras are filming. What they have come to see looks like “Dragons’ Den”, a popular TV show. But bureaucrats, not entrepreneurs, are the ones begging for cash to fund their pet projects. And politicians give the thumbs up or down. This is budget-balancing, Japanese-style. The new administration of Yukio Hatoyama has come to office with big spending plans, which it intends to pay for by scrapping wasteful expenditures of the sort that, it says, helped keep its opponents in power for half a century. Judging by the TV audiences, the public is impressed. The trouble is that Japan has a fiscal hole likely to approach 10% of GDP next year, or about YEN50 trillion ($500 billion). Such gestures are like using a toothpick to fill it in. ... >

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Schumpeter: Brand royalty

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:40:32 +0000

Oprah Winfrey's brand has many years of life left in it yet IT WAS one of the most tear-stained moments in the 24-year history of a show that specialises in tear-stained moments. On November 20th Oprah Winfrey announced that she will end her eponymous show in September 2011, 26 years after it first aired nationwide. She loves her show enough to know when it is time to say goodbye, she told her traumatised audience. The sound of ululation could be heard from sea to shining sea. For once the pundits sang the same song as “real Americans”—as one of Ms Winfrey’s recent guests, Sarah Palin, likes to call them. They talked breathlessly about Ms Winfrey’s up-from-the-bootstraps achievements—how she came from nothing to amass a fortune of $2.3 billion and how she has viewers in more than 100 countries—and pronounced her retirement the end of an era. The New York Times’s Gail Collins added that she wished politicians, from the 92-year-old Robert Byrd on down, ...

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The "I" In BRIC Stands For IT (INFY, WIT, SAY)

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:00:00 +0000

India's hot IT stocks could go even higher.

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Tech Data Gains As FY Q3 Tops Street View

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:51:19 +0000

Tech Data (TECD) shares are trading higher after the IT products distributor posted better-than-expected results for its fiscal Q3 ended October 31 . For the quarter, TECD reported revenue of $5.64 billion, down from $6.14 billion a year ago, but ahead of the Street at $5.38 billion. EPS of 84 cents was ahead of the Street at 71 cents. For the fourth quarter, the company said that “assuming the recent signs of improving IT demand continue, combined with the strength of certain foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar,” Q4 sales should be up in the low-to-mid single digit range year over year. TECD today is up $1.14, or 2.7%, to $43.96.

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