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Larry Dignan (ZDNet) submits: Microsoft’s operating chief Kevin Turner on Thursday set out to position the software giant as a cloud computing leader with a broad portfolio that rivals such as Google (GOOG), Salesforce.com (CRM), Amazon (AMZN) and VMware (VMW) can’t match. Turner, speaking at Microsoft’s financial analyst meeting, spent a lot of time talking about the company’s Azure strategy. He dinged rivals and touted a broad portfolio of cloud services ranging from the Azure appliance to SharePoint, Office, CRM and other products in the cloud.Complete Story »

Kenneth Hackel submits: Sometimes it’s better not to hire your friends, admittedly some late advice for former Bear Stearns executives. For Bill Gates, it’s definitely not too late given the superiority in Microsoft’s strength and consistency of its cash flows relative to its competition and firms in general. However, enough time has gone by to render a verdict on the leadership ability of Steve Ballmer. For Microsoft (MSFT), the tables below are telling, as we compare some important metrics to those of Oracle (ORCL), its largest and most important competitor. Complete Story »

Adib Motiwala submits: Cloud computing in simple terms is internet based computing. Software as a Service (SaaS) is software that is deployed and accessed over the internet. Saas is also called “software on demand”. Both these technologies are a rage nowadays. Companies that directly or indirectly operate in this space are considered the next Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG). Both Microsoft and Google are also creating products and services that will be delivered as a service and over the ‘cloud’ if you will. You may heard about Google Docs which is similar to Microsoft Office instead you access it via your browser from anywhere in the world. As a regular user of Google Docs and being in the IT profession, I can certainly appreciate the value of such services. Let us take a look at four companies whose business model is related in some way to Cloud computing. Two big and popular names that sport large cap market caps. Complete Story »

Andy Zaky submits:One of my favorite columnists, Eric Savitz, published a well-balanced piece comparing Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) in Barron's Saturday. Its definitely worth a read. He captures, what I think, is a very key concept when assessing these two companies - that one is a value play and the other a growth stock. As I noted in an article I published at Fortune this past Monday, I'll be running an in-depth comparative analysis of these two companies in the coming weeks.While some regard Eric as generally bearish or skeptical on Apple, I've had a chance to follow a lot of his writing over the years and can attest that those concerns are relatively overstated. He's actually very balanced and fair in his writing focusing on both the positive and negative aspects of the company.Complete Story »

Dennis Byron submits:

In a typical Silicon Valley navel gaze, a San Jose State professor named Randall Stross talks about Microsoft's (MSFT) cool-quotient problems vis a vis Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) in a July 24 New York Times article. The gist of the Times article is that Microsoft should really be compared to Oracle (ORCL) and other enterprise software suppliers unnamed (unnamed by the professor but they include non-Silicon-Valley-based software market leaders IBM, Intuit (INTU), Sage [LSE: Sage] and SAP. I agree with that as far as it goes but there are two important extensions to the enterprise- vs. consumer-software thought process from an investment and market research perspective and the author goes in the wrong direction in each case (to be fair to the author, a Microsoft executive named Francis X. Shaw teed it up for the San Jose State professor with a few false premises):Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:Market strategist Jeff Saut is out with his latest investment commentary entitled, "Don't bet the farm." In it, he lays out some basic risk management principles. The first of which, obviously, is to not bet the proverbial farm on any one scenario, no matter how good it looks. Managing downside risk is the key to success in markets. Louis Bacon, famed hedge fund manager at Moore Capital, will be the first to tell you that. Saut also believes that portfolio rebalancing is one of the tenets of successful investing. This whole conversation is an extension of his commentary last week where proclaimed risk adjusted stock selection is a key to portfolio success. You can read his entire investment strategy for the rest of his thoughts on risk management but we wanted to touch on his latest market thoughts as well. Saut highlights an excerpt from Lowry's Selling Pressure Index, who writes,Complete Story »

Brooks McFeely submits:4:36 PM, Jul 23, 2010

• DJIA up 102.3 (+1%) to 10,425
• S&P 500 up 9 (+0.8%) to 1,103
• Nasdaq up 23 (+1.1%) to 2,269

GLOBAL SENTIMENT Complete Story »

Wall Street Cheat Sheet submits: Everyone knows Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) holds a horde of cash, but many also question its ability to monetize on that latent value. After the bell Friday, Microsoft delivered a blowout quarter, reporting EPS of $0.51 compared to analyst estimates of $0.46 on revenues of $16 billion compared to estimates of $15.3 billion. This should help quell some of the recent concerns. Microsoft has been particularly beaten down both in terms of share price and reputation as people have questioned the company’s ability to evolve in a dynamic technology environment. Things are so bad that Steve Ballmer retirement rumors find their way to the Internet on a daily basis. Despite the negativity, we featured Microsoft as one of our long plays in the Premium Newsletter , and on the CBS Radio Stock Picker Segment, as a great way to weather the recent volatility storm taking hold of global markets.Complete Story »

Kapitall submits:Here is a list of 15 companies releasing earning statements on July 22. We've sorted the companies by market cap, and have briefly discussed their earnings performance over the past 3 years. The charts show past earning performances against analyst estimates. The green markers indicate the company beating estimates, while the red makers represent the company falling short of analyst expectations. All data is sourced from Zacks Investment Research.Complete Story »

Kapitall submits:Here is a list of 15 companies releasing earning statements on July 22. We've sorted the companies by market cap, and have briefly discussed their earnings performance over the past 3 years. The charts show past earning performances against analyst estimates. The green markers indicate the company beating estimates, while the red makers represent the company falling short of analyst expectations. All data is sourced from Zacks Investment Research.Complete Story »