BeachRider

51 Option Ideas for Bears

HPQ is showing up in too many bear-scenarios. There must be some kind of negative sentiment on their future success with EDS and Computer Storage. The IA-32 server business is still sound, but not much growth in CY2009. There is no clear signal with their IA-64 (Itanium) stuff.

Enterprise IT at a Crossroad

The details of 'Cloud Computing' involve higher levels of network-complexity versus local-hosting. Although this is an opportunity for CSCO and other network-intensive vendors, it is a challenge for the client.

At my company, one of the most-significant problems with adapting to 'Cloud Computing' is the ramp-up of network appliances. VPN servers, large-pipe robust internet access and network-security have had many more staff and dollars thrown at them to address this kind of workload.

Costs of this versus other models have only begun to evolve. This needs to be monitored to assure the cost-efficiency of continuing this approach.

Sinking or Rising: Top 10 S&P Winners and Losers, Year-to-Date

I am always fascinated by the press that JAVA gets. Certainly, JAVA was beaten down badly in 2008. Java is a good buy IFF their next quarter shows that their operating model from the previous quarterly report is continuing. Too many long-term projections for JAVA performance have been made from the jumpy quarterly successes/failures.

The HP and IBM Solaris-on-Intel deals don't weigh in for much. It is more about their own software-sales and hardware-sales.

It seems likely that both will contract a bit for the next few quarters. The economic outlook for USA, Europe and Japan isn't rosy enough yet to predict better stuff.

Tech Bellwether Earnings Scorecard Update

Why do companies like this think that they can 'get away' with no Guidance on business levels? They must have firm plans on this because those plans are needed to gauge infrastructure, staffing, supply chain, etc.

They have 'Guidance', but they don't want to chance a stock-crash if they miss.

They need stronger high-leadership to establish confident objectives that generate confident Guidance.

Top Ten Tech Surprises in 2009: Low Probability, High Consequence Edition

Isn't Cisco trying to enhance their Intel-blade offerings? Doesn't Sun have a substantial knowledge of doing that from their Intel/AMD blade products? I don't know how the Sun/STK disk stuff would sell at Cisco, they don't have any offering in that area (could be good, though). The freeware might be useful to Cisco to augment existing Cisco products for Network monitoring that presume the use of Sun/Solaris. Purchasing Sun can't really be that expensive, anyway.

I would like to see these two get together.

Eight IT Analysts' Predictions for 2009

Sun gets bought out by HP, huh? It won't really cost HP much, but there will be fallout from the StorageTek vs HP disk-storage issues as well as Sun's current infusion of dollars into non-Intel CPUs (verboten at HP).

I submit that Cisco would be a better acquirer of Sun. It is just a guess though.

Happy New Year, Keep your heads low!

How Will Cloud Computing Impact IT Vendors?

Hardware vendors and cloud computing are an interesting mix. Initially, it sounds like 'cloud computers' would mean less-revenue for these vendors. It could be true that it would benefit sales of the very-largest servers, due to centralization. On the other hand, software may be able to better-adapt to 'cloud computing'. It remains to be seen if this stuff materializes to any meaningful degree. Several vendors have been predicting its ascension for several years.