IT News: Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO)’s Job Cuts, Hewlett-Packard Company HPQ)’s Potential Upside & International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)

Editor’s Note: Related tickers: Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Cisco CEO: Decision to lay off 4,000 ‘had to be made’ (BizJournals)
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) CEO John Chambers said he’s not proud of his recent decision to lay off 4,000 workers, but that it was a decision that had to me made. Chambers made the remark to the 2013 North Carolina CEO forum at which he shared his reasoning behind the job cuts. Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) has a large North Texas campus in Richardson. How the cut will affect the Richardson facility have not been released. Chambers told the forum that the layoffs would allow the company to transition to an “inconsistent market,” the Triangle Business Journal in North Carolina reported.

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ)

What will Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) learn from its quarter earnings report? (Avauncer)
Shares of Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) were down 12.45% to close at $22.22. Despite this, shares remained at the higher end of its 52-week price range of $11.35 to $27.78. The company has 1.93 billion shares outstanding, thereby having a market capitalization of $42.85 billion. The fall in share prices were after the company posted a depressing quarter earnings report. The company has however managed to reverse the huge losses that it had reported for the same quarter in the previous year, posting a profit in its third quarter of 2013. The company ahs reported earnings of $1.39 billion, or 71 cents per share, as compared to a loss of a huge $8.86 billion or $4.46 per share for the same quarter for the previous year.

IBM Rolls Out Credit Risk Suite for CFOs; Wayne Wilczynski Comments (ExecutiveBiz)
International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) has unveiled an enterprise risk management platform that uses big data and analytics technology, aiming to give users an instrumented view of risk and accounting functions across an organization. The platform and dashboard targets C-suite executives in the financial services and credit life cycle management business, IBM said Monday. Wayne Wilczynski, global risk and regulatory compliance leader at IBM, said the IBM Signature Solution works to help chief financial officers fulfill their roles as decision makers and managers of systems, infrastructure, people and accounts.

GERMANY: Conti close to autonomous car alliances with Google and IBM (Just-Auto)
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper has reported that Continental is close to agreeing alliances with Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) to develop autonomous driving systems for cars. The newspaper said that Continental aims to unveil the two pacts at the Frankfurt auto show in September. Continental is already working with Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) on systems for autonomous vehicles and on data transfer between cars.

Cisco Sees Brazilian Expansion Opportunity in Currency Plunge (BusinessWeek)
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), the biggest maker of networking equipment, said it is expanding in Brazil at a time when currency volatility and a slowdown in Latin America’s largest economy discourage some of its competitors. Based in San Jose, California, Cisco opened an innovation center in Rio de Janeiro today to boost sales and services to government and corporate clients, including energy and mining companies, Robert Lloyd, head of development and sales, said in an interview.

What Cramer thinks Hewlett-Packard needs? (CNBC)


If IBM cloud-washed its earnings results, it’s likely not alone (INFoworld)
I hate cloud-washing, the practice of repositioning traditional technology so that it’s sold as cloud computing technology. In many cases, this is done by large companies that initially pushed back hard against cloud computing, to the point that they would not allow me to mention the “C word” when speaking at their conferences years back. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) was recently called on the carpet by the SEC for, in essence, cloud-washing in its 10-Q report, an investor document the feds scrutinize to make sure nothing misleading or false is said. The SEC has raised a question around accounting for what’s cloud computing and what’s not.

Hewlett-Packard Company Enters Oversold Territory – Tale of the Tape (Nasdaq)
Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ)’s share price has entered into oversold territory with an RSI value of 26.04. The Zacks Consensus Estimate on Hewlett-Packard Company.’s earnings for the full year period has moved higher by 1 cent over the past two months to $3.56 per share. Currently, Hewlett-Packard Company.is a Zacks #2 Rank (“Buy”), suggesting that now might be a good time to get in on (HPQ) after its recent drop.

Hewlett-Packard Price Target Cut to $31.00 (HPQ) (DailyPolitical)
Stock analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein decreased their price objective on shares of Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) from $33.00 to $31.00 in a report issued on Thursday, AnalystRatings.Net reports. The firm currently has an “outperform” rating on the stock. Sanford C. Bernstein’s price target would suggest a potential upside of 39.51% from the stock’s previous close. Shares of Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) opened at 22.22 on Thursday. Hewlett-Packard has a 52 week low of $11.35 and a 52 week high of $27.78. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $26.03 and its 200-day moving average is $22.72. The company’s market cap is $42.852 billion. Hewlett-Packard also saw unusually large options trading on Tuesday. Investors bought 46,291 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 156% compared to the average daily volume of 18,112 call options.

IBM Wins $1 Billion Cloud Deal with Feds (CIO-Today)
In a demonstration of the government’s confidence in the cloud Relevant Products/Services — and in IBM — the United States Department of the Interior (DOI) awarded Big Blue a contract worth up to $1 billion. The deal comes as the DOI sets out on a decade-long IT transition to the cloud. As part of an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract, the DOI may use IBM cloud computing technologies, services and hosting as the foundation of its next generation infrastructure. Although the contract may not ultimately fetch $1 billion, it’s still being touted as the largest largest-ever federal cloud contract in IT history and it could open the door for Big Blue to help other government agencies make the transition.