The analysts also hiked the price target raised to a Wall Street-high of  $300 a share from $240.

Stifel analysts mentioned  that a survey it conducted of CrowdStrike customers reflects the growing customer demand for consolidating security functionalities with CrowdStrike over time as well as extending their CrowdStrike deployments.

Analyst Brad Redback of Stifel said he sees significant room  for CrowdStrike to gain new customers.According to Redback, the company over time can boost its customer count to more than 100,000 (that is, nearly 10 times the 11,420 customers the company reported in its January quarter).

Stifel is expecting a greater use of CrowdStrike's Falcon endpoint protection program that should enable the company to reach the higher end of its non-GAAP subscription gross-margin target range of between 77% and 82% faster than investors currently expect.

Oracle shares dropped -5% in extended trading on Tuesday, despite earnings beat. It provided a lower-than-expected guidance on quarterly revenue. The computer tech company also expressed plans to boost capital expenditures for cloud computing workloads. Adjusted earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter came in at $1.54 per share, beating the $1.31 per share expected by analysts, according to...

FactSet poll showed analysts’ expectations of $163.7 million for revenue and $185.4 million for billings.

Looking ahead, Zscaler projects adjusted earnings of 8 cents to 9 cents a share on revenue of $185 million to $187 million for the fiscal fourth quarter, and about 47 cents a share on revenue of $660 million to $664 million for the year.Analysts had expected earnings of 9 cents on revenue of $173.9 million for the fiscal fourth quarter, and 40 cents a share on revenue of $637.5 million for the year.

The cybersecurity company also boosted its guidance for the year. 

The company’s fiscal third-quarter non-GAAP earnings came in $1.39 per share, compared to the $1.29 a share expected by analysts polled by FactSet.The company generated revenue of $869.4 million in the year-ago quarter.

Palo Alto Networks is expecting fiscal fourth-quarter revenue in the range of $1.165 billion to $1.175 billion and diluted non-GAAP net income per share of $1.42 to $1.44.

The analyst has a $400 price target on the shares.

Tindle said in a note that Palo Alto Networks "has underperformed significantly year to date, and we previously noted our concern that next gen [annual recurring revenue] guidance did not appear conservative.""

According to Tindle, Palo Alto experienced “a sustained period of healthy growth and operating leverage for the better part of prior CEO Mark McLaughlin's tenure."

Square   shares climbed in after-market trading Thursday, following  after the company posted earnings beat for the first quarter.

The digital payments company’s adjusted earnings per share came in at 41 cents, handily topping the 16 cents expected in a Refinitiv survey of analysts.

Revenue soared almost four times in the quarter to $5.057 billion,  compared to $3.36 billion expected by Refinitiv.

Gross profit climbed +79% year over year to $964 million in the quarter that ended Mar.Cash App gross profit surged +171% from the year-ago quarter to $495 million.

Square generated $3.5 billion in bitcoin revenue, up 11 times year over year.

Microsoft  posted its fiscal third quarter earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations – in the ninth consecutive quarter.

The software behemoth’s earnings for the quarter came in at $1.95 a share, compared to  $1.77 a share expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue of $41.7 billion also beat estimates of $40.83 billion. Revenue grew at +19% annualized rate – the biggest quarterly growth since 2018.PC sales was a major contributor to growth.

The company said its Azure public cloud grew +50%, faster than the +46% growth analysts had expected, according to a CNBC review of 14 equity research notes.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported that the app may instead consider an initial public offering.

Earlier, the software behemoth was reportedly in talks to offer more than $10 billion for Discord .Other potential buyers included Epic Games and Amazon.com.

Last year, Microsoft sought to acquire social-media app TikTok.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced that Oracle would fund a $1.2 billion campus in his city.  According to the Mayor’s office, the campus will generate about $8.8 million annually in local sales and use taxes.

The computer technology company’s campus is expected to bring 2,500 jobs to the city by the end of 2027 and 8,500 by the end of 2031.The investment potentially includes $175 million in public infrastructure. 

The mayor revealed that Oracle will pay upfront all the infrastructure costs.

Oracle has requested a public hearing to seek approval of an economic impact plan with the Metro Industrial Development Board.

 

 

Microsoft has agreed to acquire computer technology firm Nuance Communications  in a $20 billion all-cash deal.

Microsoft will pay $56 a share for Nuance, a 23% premium to its Friday closing price.It would be Microsoft's second-largest deal on record, after its $26 billion deal for Linkedin in 2016. 

"Nuance provides the AI layer at the healthcare point of delivery and is a pioneer in the real-world application of enterprise AI," said CEO Satya Nadella.

Microsoft won a major Pentagon contract, potentially worth $22 billion for the next years, for augmented reality headsets. Per the contract, the technology giant will produce 120,000 of the headsets, which are based on its HoloLens technology, According to a statement from the Program Executive Office Soldier, the Pentagon awarded Microsoft a fixed price production agreement to manufacture...

BlackBerry Limited posted fourth quarter revenue that fell short of analysts’ expectations. This could in part be due to licensing revenue challenges amid negotiations to sell patents that bring in licensing revenue. The company’s adjusted earnings for the quarter came in at 3 cents a share, on non-GAAP revenue of $215 million. In the same period a year ago, the company reported earnings of 9...

Oracle posted fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations. The cloud technology behemoth’s adjusted earnings came in at $1.16, above the $1.11 per share expected by analysts (according to Refinitiv). Adjusted earnings surged +20% from the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the quarter rose +3% on an annualized basis to $10.09 billion, vs. $10.07 billion expected by...

Fund manager Cathie Wood said her exchange-traded funds bought a total 2.65 million shares of data-analytics company Palantir’s stock. Wood’s purchased about 2 million shares for her flagship ETF, ARK Innovation and about 650,000 in her ARK Next Generation Internet ETF. Wood’s purchases amount to around $62.5 million, based on Wednesday’s closing price of the stock. Last month, Wood revealed...

Twilio crushed analysts’ expectations by posting a profit for the fourth quarter. The cloud communication platform’s adjusted earnings for the quarter came in at 4 cents per share, compared to a loss of -8 cents per share expected by analysts polled by Refinitiv. Revenue of $548.1 million also topped analysts’ expectation sof $454.8 million. Contribution of political activity was $23 million...

Dropbox posted fourth quarter earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations, on the back of increasing number of paying users. The file hosting service’s earnings for the quarter came in at 28 cents a share(up from the year-ago quarter’s 16 cents a share), compared to the 24 cents a share expected by analysts polled by Factset. Revenue of $504.1 billion (up from year-ago period’s $446...

Palantir Technologies reported a wider-than-expected fourth-quarter loss. However, the software company expects solid sales for the first quarter and full year. Palantir incurred a net loss of -$148.3 million, or -8 cents a share, vs. a loss of -$159.3 million, or -29 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. Analysts polled by FactSet had been expecting a narrower loss, -3 cents a share...

Microsoft Corp.  posted earnings much stronger than expected by analysts. The performance was bolstered by the tech behemoth’s  cloud revenues and personal computer sales.

Microsoft’s earnings for the three months ending in December, (the company's fiscal second quarter) increased +34% year-over-year to $2.03 per share, well ahead of the Street consensus forecast of $1.64 per share.

 Revenues surged +17% year-over-year to $43.1 billion, again exceeding analysts' estimates of  $40.2 billion.

Intelligent Cloud revenues climbed +23% from the year-ago period to $14.6 billion, with server products and cloud services sales rising 26%, driven by a 50% jump in revenues for Azure, Microsoft's cloud offering.

Revenues in Personal computing segment rose +14% to $15.1 billion, apparently driven by the 'work-from-home' culture amid pandemic.

BlackBerry   announced an expanded partnership with Baidu,   on automated high-definition mapping software that is used  in Baidu's autonomous vehicle technology.

The deal broadens Baidu’s use of BlackBerry’s operating system in its "Apollo" autonomous driving open platform.The integrated system will be available on Guangzhou Automobile Group electric vehicle arm’s upcoming GAC New Energy Aion models.

On Friday, Oracle  got a sell rating from Goldman Sachs, as the bank initiated coverage of 12 software companies.

Goldman Sachs said, “when we asked CIOs which vendors will gain or lose share in DX [digital experience] budgets, amongst all vendors, ORCL did not perform well,”.

According to the Goldman Sachs analysts, Oracle had a “net strength of negative 39%, defined as the percentage gaining share less the percentage losing share.”

They also mentioned that for several years  Oracle has focused on organic development, and that it did not  make any major acquisitions.The net result of this strategy, according to Goldman Sachs analysts,  has been a “steady deceleration” in revenue growth from 4% in FY14-15 to 0.3% in FY20.