Who’s At Risk From Slowing Enterprise Server Shipments?

Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty her team and write that they expect enterprise server shipments to slow, thanks to increasing virtualization and the cloud.

This comes after several years of 3% to 5% growth in this area, and these trends will be compounded by tough comparisons following the Grantley cycle and the expiation of Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Server 2003 support last year.

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Applied Materials Jumps 13% On Upbeat Earnings, Analysts Cheer

Applied Materials (AMAT)  is jumping Friday afternoon after its beat-and-raise quarterly report Thursday evening.

Not surprisingly, analysts were also largely happy with the results, and the stock got a few price target increases as a result.

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Numerous Price Target Cuts For Brocade After Light Forecast

Brocade Communications Systems (BRCM) is lower Friday, hurt by its disappointing guidance.

Analysts were largely unhappy with the quarter, even if results weren’t very surprising, and Brocade received a number of target price cuts on the report.

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Analysts Still Bullish On Autodesk; Stock Falls Despite Q1 Beat

Autodesk (ADSK) is lower Friday, even though it reported a better-than-expected first quarter Thursday evening.

The shares were lower just after the announcement, but made some headway in afterhours trading. Yet they were lower today, even as analysts largely maintained their bullish stance on the stock.

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Expect Upbeat Earnings From Pure Storage: Pacific Crest

Pure Storage (PSTG) reports earnings next week, and Pacific Crest thinks the company will deliver an upside surprise.

Analysts Brent Bracelin and Alyssa Johnson reiterated an Overweight rating and $24 price target on the company Friday, writing that the company is the largest and fastest-growing flash storage pure-play and could see sales soar 60% this year.

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Microsoft A Buy On Strong Cloud Prospects: Stifel

Stifel’s Brad Reback and Adam Borg reiterated a Buy rating and $58 price target on Microsoft (MSFT) Friday, after meeting with senior management earlier this week.

They write that the meetings reinforced their thesis that Microsoft’s commercial cloud strategy is working and should hit its $20 billion goal in fiscal 2018, providing solid growth in coming years. Management highlighted the company’s ability to take share in the productivity segment, as it also benefits from higher average selling prices.

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Yahoo Slips As WSJ Reports Bids May Be Below Expectations

Shares of Yahoo (YHOO) were lower on Friday, following reports that bids for the tech giant’s core business may be lower than before.

According to reports in The Wall Street Journal late yesterday, Verizon Communications (VZ) and others may bid about $2 billion to $3 billion for the assets the first week of June, less than previous bids between $4 billion and $8 billion and below what the company was expecting, according to sources close to the situation.

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Cisco Shares A Buy After Strong Earnings: Bernstein

Cisco’s (CSCO) reported a better-than-expected fiscal third quarter earlier this week, sending shares higher.

Bernstein’s Pierre Ferragu and his team reiterated an Outperform rating and $34 price target on Cisco shares following the report.

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Buy FitBit On New Products, International Expansion: OpCo

Oppenheimer & Co.’s Andrew Uerkwitz, Paul Dean, and Martin Yang reiterated an Outperform rating and $25 price target on FitBit (FIT) Friday, after meeting with the company’s CFO, Bill Zerella.

They write that their conversations focused on replacement cycles, operating expense trends, and FitBit’s international growth. In the latter category, they were heartened to see that  yesterday was “Fitbit-Day” in China, as the products were feature on Alibaba’s  (BABA) front page, one of ten global consumer brands China’s ecommerce giant has promoted.

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Tech Companies Have The Most Cash; Apple Still King: Moody’s

Non-financial companies in the U.S. had a combined cash hoard of $1.68 trillion at the end of last year, a 1.8% year-over-year increase, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service—and tech led the way.

U.S. companies had to have at least $6.12 billion on hand to be considered amid the top 50, but that was no problem for leader Apple (AAPL), which has an eye-watering $216 billon on its books. It’s held the crown since 2009.

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