The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Microsoft, Oracle, Facebook, Google and Salesforce

CHICAGO, July 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- 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 Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT-Free Report), Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL-Free Report), Facebook (Nasdaq:FB-Free Report), Google (Nasdaq:GOOG-Free Report) and Salesforce (NYSE:CRM-Free Report).

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101027/ZIRLOGO)

Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.

Here are highlights from Monday's Analyst Blog:

Tech Roundup: Microsoft Soars, Google Disappoints

Last week, Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT-Free Report) signed an important agreement with Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL-Free Report) related to cloud computing technologies, Facebook (Nasdaq:FB-Free Report) announced its news reader, while the FTC initiated a review of Google's (Nasdaq:GOOG-Free Report) Waze acquisition.

Cloud Wars: The Age of Collaboration

In a total about-face, the technology sector's long-standing rivals Microsoft and Oracle decided to join forces. Oracle, in fact, is on something of a spree, also collaborating with leading CRM provider Salesforce (NYSE:CRM-Free Report) and others. The idea behind these partnerships is to create hybrid clouds that enable seamless operation of solutions from these players, effectively increasing the stickiness of users to their platforms and stemming share losses to upstarts such as Workday, as well as better entrenched players.

IDC estimates that in 2012, Oracle led the database segment with a 45% share of the market and Microsoft was a strong second with 20%. Microsoft's cloud platform Azure, which offers infrastructure for building and running applications and storing information in its servers, is up against some very tough competition from Amazon's AWS.

Amazon has been undercutting Microsoft on price in the fastest-growing IaaS segment of the cloud market, a situation that Microsoft has vowed to change. With the current arrangement in place, Microsoft's Azure gets better positioned against AWS and its Hyper-V virtualization software gets better positioned versus market leader VMware's.      

Facebook's Changing Face

Facebook, which was founded by Mark Zuckerberg as a place for friends to find each other, hang out and share pictures, is looking for more. It's evident that the joy of connecting with a long-lost friend ends once the connection is made, or admiring a friend's pictures gets boring after a while. This increases the chances of a user moving to other apps. So Facebook intends to do a few things that could keep users on Facebook, giving it a chance to serve them ads and make some money in the process.

For some time now, the company has been trying to draw users' attention to news, events and hot topics of conversation. Last week, it announced its own news reading service (currently called Reader), which will display both user and publisher-generated news in a mobile-friendly visual format.

Zuckerberg has promised "the best personalized newspaper in the world" at a time when Google has decided to bow out of the segment. Seems like a good time and a good domain for Facebook.

Google's Waze Under Scrutiny

The FTC is reviewing Google's acquisition of Israeli mapping company Waze two weeks after it closed. Google has taken advantage of a rule that allows the acquisition of foreign companies to go through without prior antitrust review or filing under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act in certain cases.

Accordingly, foreign companies with less than $70.9 million in revenue or assets in the U.S. can be taken over without such formalities. Therefore, Google's action indicates that it believes that Waze had neither the revenues (a known fact) nor assets (yet to be proved) in the U.S. that could be worth more than $70.9 million. And yet it agreed to spend $1.3 billion. So Google's intention becomes suspect and the subject of anti-trust review.

If it is proved that Waze's intellectual property is worth more, Google could see the deal getting unwound pretty quick since the acquisition would have been improperly executed in the first place. If Google crosses this hurdle, it will be easier to prove that it didn't have bad intentions. After all, it has already stated that Waze would operate separately with parts of the technology being incorporated into Google Maps.

Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.

About Zacks Equity Research

Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and which to sell for the long-term.

Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

Zacks "Profit from the Pros" e-mail newsletter provides highlights of the latest analysis from Zacks Equity Research. Subscribe to this free newsletter today.

About Zacks

Zacks.com is a property of Zacks Investment Research, Inc., which was formed in 1978. The later formation of the Zacks Rank, a proprietary stock picking system; continues to outperform the market by nearly a 3 to 1 margin. The best way to unlock the profitable stock recommendations and market insights of Zacks Investment Research is through our free daily email newsletter; Profit from the Pros.  In short, it's your steady flow of Profitable ideas GUARANTEED to be worth your time! Register for your free subscription to Profit from the Pros.

Get the full Report on MSFT - FREE

Get the full Report on ORCL - FREE

Get the full Report on FB - FREE

Get the full Report on GOOG - FREE

Get the full Report on CRM - FREE

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/zacksresearch

Join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Zacks-Investment-Research/57553657748?ref=ts

Zacks Investment Research is under common control with affiliated entities (including a broker-dealer and an investment adviser), which may engage in transactions involving the foregoing securities for the clients of such affiliates.

Media Contact
Zacks Investment Research
800-767-3771 ext. 9339
support@zacks.com
http://www.zacks.com

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit http://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.

SOURCE Zacks Investment Research, Inc.