Every day, the sun rises on Wall Street, and a plethora of
professional analysts wake to issue new opinions on stocks.
Here at the Fool, we use our "This Just In" column to examine
some of these picks -- and
the track recordsof the firm behind them -- so
individuals can make better investing decisions.
In addition to following professional banks, anyone can
use
Motley Fool CAPSto monitor the collective opinions of
more than 140,000 members, many of whom
demonstrate better investing insight than published analysts
do.
VMware (NYSE: VMW) had struggled to improve
on the three-star
rankingit held for most of the past few years, but
 enough top-performing CAPS members have turned
bullish recently to elevate it to
four
stars. A total of 1,761 members have given their opinion
on VMware, with many offering analysis and commentary
explaining the recent optimism.
While it's not completely out of the woods amid the
recession, the virtualization software maker is now able to
give a little more clarity in its forecasts. Like majority
owner
EMC (NYSE: EMC), it pulled in
better-than-expectedthird-quarter results, helped by
strong sales to the U.S. government. While giants like
IBM (NYSE: IBM),
Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), and
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) recently improved their
outlooks, VMware expects to follow up what many saw as a
yawner of a quarterwith higher revenue than what Wall
Street is expecting, too.
After putting them on the back burner, companies are
making IT investments again, and VMware's customers have
shown a strong appetite for its services. It may take some
time for VMware's new vSphere software to make an impact on
revenue, but CAPS members see big long-term potential in
virtualization, a market that
Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) and
Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT)
also want a piece of. And with its purchase of privately
held SpringSource, VMware looks to
boost its cloud computingpotential. It has consistently
pulled in positive free cash flow, giving CAPS members many
reasons to like the stock.
Do you think VMware deserves its improved status? Add your
thoughts in the comments box below, or head over to CAPS to
rate the
companyand check out all the information and opinions the
community offers, absolutely free.
This article was originally published as
A Big Upgrade for VMwareon
Fool.com
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