3 Enterprise Software Stocks Selling On The Cheap

Oracle's business and profits have been growing at an impressive rate of late. Oracle's fiscal year ends May 31. So, in the company's most recent quarter, its third of fiscal 2012, earnings came to $9 billion, up about three percent from the year before. Profits were up 13% to $3.1 billion, or $0.62 per share, an 11% surprise to Wall Street Analysts, who had expected $0.56 per share. Not only are revenues marching along, cash flows from operations for the trailing twelve months through February 29, 2012 of $13.5 billion were a 35% advance from the year previously period.

The 2009, $7 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems was really the game changer for Oracle. It put Oracle in the computer hardware business to compete against the likes of Hewlett Packard and Dell Computers. It as well put into question the future of Sun's cache of Java based, open source software, Oracle is known for its aggressiveness for how it runs and sells its business and products. Java is nevertheless open, nevertheless no one knows for how long.

Looking toward the future, Oracle is so tied to the information research needs of major companies that it rides as the economy rides. The company's recent growth was not just acquisition driven; there was pent up demand resulting from last decade's recession. With its net profit margin in the low 30% range, every dollar of revenue that can be generated matters. Later this year, a new class of high end servers will be introduced that will allow the company to furthermore expand its hardware earnings. Analysts foresee revenues this fiscal year of $2.42 per share, and at once year at $2.63 per share, and a five year growth rate of about 12% annually. As well, note Oracle's balance sheet is a thing of beauty, with near $30 billion of cash and short term securities.

Couple reasons just in case to its balance sheet

I like Oracle for a couple reasons just in case to its balance sheet. Its core business, database management, in effect does help customers to be more organized and reduce their costs. The company's revenues are going to be increasing the straightway several years, absent some sort of Armageddon. The company's stock has fallen some 15% since May 1, and this presents a terrific buying possibility. Oracle has a 5 year PEG of 0.92, indicative of an oversold status. The one year target price of $34 per share represents a 33% advance from today's price. Do yourself a favor and take a look.

EMC is a world leader in high performance storage devices, and software that helps them to run. This is another high tech company with a bullet proof balance sheet and a promising growth history and prospects. It has a traditional fiscal year, so in its first quarter of 2012 earnings, revenues, and revenues per share all advanced by double digit rates for the ninth consecutive quarter. Exactly, revenue for the quarter came to $5.1 billion, or 11% higher than in the first quarter of 2011. Adjusted earnings came to $818 million or $0.37 per share, both rising 18% from the year previously. The per share amount was as well one cent above analysts' expectations.

EMC is heavily involved in cloud computing, hastened by the company's majority acquisition of Vmware in 2004. EMC opened its own certification program in December, 2011. In March, 2012, it acquired privately held Pivotal Labs to furthermore refine its cloud computing business. As a leader in enterprise IT, it showed a good amount of foresight in getting on the cloud train early. Looking forward, there is little reason to doubt EMC's ability to continue to generate low double digit gains. And again, this top tier company is on sale, with a stock price today some 17% below its recent highs, set in early April of this year.

Another winning high tech stock is CA, Inc.. CA is a leading software maker and seller, typically for mainframes and other sophisticated networked settings. Of particular note is that before this year it raised its quarterly dividend fivefold to $0.25, for an annual yield of 4.0%. That makes it a legitimate income stock, nevertheless CA as well has substantial growth potential.

The subsequent calendar year

CA's fiscal year ends March 31 of the subsequent calendar year. So, in its fourth quarter of 2011, CA maintained its string of having beaten analysts' expectations each and every quarter. For all of 2011, CA posted revenue of $4.8 billion, up nine percent from the year previously. Adjusted revenues came to $1.12 billion, or $1.90 per share, representing an 18% increase from fiscal 2010. Analysts see a steady ten percent profit growth rate for the company, driving the 5 year PEG to 0.97. And again, the stock is "on sale" both because of its fall of about 12% since late March, 2012, and the fact the company is aggressively reducing shares outstanding, being mid-way through a $1.5 billion share buyback program. Boding so then for the company's future is in spite of the dividend hike and share buyback, the company's capital spending in fiscal 2011 was more than double what it was in 2010, and furthermore hikes are likely going forward.