The Best (And Worst) Third-Quarter Technology Vendor Stocks

Winners Far Outnumber Tech Stock Losers In Q3

Wall Street has had a pretty good third quarter with Dow Jones and Nasdaq indices increasing 1.5 percent and 10.8 percent, respectively through Sept. 30. But, technology vendors have performed even better with gainers outnumbering losers by 25 to 10. Here's a look at the winners and losers this quarter.

BlackBerry

CEO: Thorsten Heins
June 28, 2013: $10.46
Sept. 30, 2013: $7.95
Change: -24.0%

It was a rough quarter for smartphone maker BlackBerry, the company with the worst stock performance among all the IT company's tracked by CRN in the third calendar quarter.

The company reported a $965 million loss for its second quarter and announced plans to layoff 4,500 employees. Shortly after that, BlackBerry disclosed a plan to be taken private for $4.7 billion by Fairfax Financial Holdings, about $9 per share.

Hewlett-Packard

CEO: Meg Whitman
June 28, 2013: $24.80
Sept. 30, 2013: $20.99
Change: -15.4%


Hewlett-Packard's stock has been on something of a roller-coaster ride lately. After seeing its stock drop nearly in half in 2012, the company rebounded in the first six months of this year with the best performing stock of any company on our list. But in the third calendar quarter, HP's shares fell 15.4 percent, the second-worst performer among all the stocks tracked by CRN.

In September, Hewlett-Packard, part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1997, was dropped from the index because its share price had fallen so low. The change signified that HP has recently been out of step with the overall stock market and with the U.S. economy, which the DJIA is designed to mimic.

Advanced Micro Devices

CEO: Rory Read
June 28, 2013: $4.08
Sept. 30, 2013: $3.81
Change: -6.6%


AMD's stock performance in the first half of 2013 was second only to Hewlett-Packard's. But like HP, AMD's shares couldn't maintain their gains in the third calendar quarter and fell 6.6 percent.

AMD, like arch-rival Intel, has been hurt by the slowdown in sales of personal computers, despite efforts to diversify into new markets.

In May, AMD launched a low-power Opteron server chip to compete with Intel's Atom processors. And in June, the company said it was prepping a new ARM server chip for debut in 2014.

Intel

CEO: Brian Krzanich
June 28, 2013: $24.23
Sept. 30, 2013: $22.92
Change: -5.4%


The September quarter marked the first under the command of Brian Krzanich, who was appointed CEO in May to replace the retiring Paul Otellini.

In September, Intel went on the offensive against ARM competitors, unveiling new Bay Trail Atom 22nm processors and a new family of ultra-low power Quark chips for embedded applications.

Intel also debuted additions to its line of Xeon microprocessors for high-performance servers.

Cisco Systems

CEO: John Chambers
June 28, 2013: $24.33
Sept. 30, 2013: $23.43
Change: -3.7%


Cisco shares had been on a steady rise through the first half of the year. But, the value of the networking equipment maker's shares fell in the third calendar quarter. Cisco shares plunged more than 9 percent on Aug. 14 after the company announced plans to cut 4,000 jobs. CEO John Chambers said the move was designed to make the company leaner and more nimble, rather than a need to cut costs. And Cisco shook up the industry when it disclosed plans to buy solid-state storage system maker Whiptail for $415 million. While Cisco said the acquisition did not signal a move by the company into the general storage system market, it raised questions about the company's commitment to its VCE joint venture with EMC. In July, Cisco said it would acquire Cybersecurity system maker Sourcefire for $2.7 billion.

FalconStor

CEO: Gary Quinn
June 28, 2013: $1.37
Sept. 30, 2013: $2.33
Change: -3.6%


In late July, FalconStor appointed Gary Quinn to be the company's new president and CEO. Quinn had been serving in that post for about a month on an interim basis following the sudden resignation of president and CEO Jim McNiel on July 1.

This year, the maker of disk-based data protection and storage virtualization technologies has struggled with declining sales. Still, the slight decline in FalconStor's stock price represents an improvement from the first half of 2013 during which the value of the company's shares fell 41.2 percent, the most of any IT vendor tracked by CRN.

Microsoft

CEO: Steve Ballmer
June 28, 2013: $34.54
Sept. 30, 2013: $33.28
Change: 3.6%


It's been a tumultuous few months at Microsoft. In July, the company announced a massive reorganization plan as the company drives toward its goal of re-inventing itself as a services and devices company.

But Microsoft's flagship device, the Surface tablet, struggled in the marketplace. Despite slashing the product's price, sales lagged, and in July the company took a $900 million write down for unsold inventory of Surface RT products.

In August, CEO Steve Ballmer announced that he would retire within the next year, leaving the post he has held since 2000.

Red Hat

CEO: James Whitehurst
June 28, 2013: $47.82
Sept. 30, 2013 $46.14
Change: -3.5%


While Red Hat is best known for its distribution of Linux, in the third calendar quarter the company continued its expansion into new areas such as virtualization and storage management. And the company's competition with virtualization technology giant VMware heated up when Red Hat hired away VMware executive Scott Musson to manage strategic relationships.

On Sept. 23 Red Hat announced that sales in its second fiscal quarter ended Aug. 31 increased 16 percent to $374 million.

IBM

CEO: Virginia Rometty
June 28, 2013: $191.11
Sept. 30, 2013: $185.20
Change: -3.1%


IBM's stock price was essentially flat in the first half of this year. In the third quarter there was some movement -- but in the wrong direction.

While generally maintaining growth in its software and services business this year, IBM has been struggling with its server and storage hardware businesses. In the company's second quarter systems and technology revenue was down 12 percent, including a precipitous 25 percent drop in Power Systems sales.

In August, channel chief Bill Donohue retired and the company said it was searching for a replacement. In September, IBM pledged to spend $1 billion in a multiyear effort to develop its Linux and related open-source technologies.

Seagate Technology

CEO: Stephen Luczo
June 28, 2013: $44.83
Sept. 30, 2013: $43.76
Change: -2.4%


Seagate has had a pretty good track record recently in terms of its stock price. In 2012 it was the biggest share-price gainer among all stocks followed by CRN, and in the first half of this year, the disk drive maker's stock gained 47.4 percent in value. But, that run came to an end in the third calendar quarter as the price of its stocked slipped a bit.

In July, the company reported that sales for its fourth fiscal quarter ended June 28 were $3.4 billion, down more than 23 percent from one year earlier. Revenue for the full fiscal year was down almost 4 percent to $14.4 billion.

Quantum

CEO: Jon Gacek
June 28, 2013: $1.37
Sept. 30, 2013: $1.38
Change: 0.7%


Data storage technology developer Quantum is the first company on CRN's list to show a gain in its share price in the third calendar quarter.

In August, Quantum reported that revenue in its first fiscal quarter ended June 30 grew more than 5 percent to just shy of $148 million. The company is trying to ramp up sales of its disk systems and software products, including storage virtualization systems, while sales of its tape products decline.

Netgear

CEO: Patrick Lo
June 28, 2013: $30.54
Sept. 30, 2013: $30.86
Change: 1.0%


Considering that Netgear's stock price lost more than 22 percent of its value in the first half of 2013, the 1 percent gain in the third calendar quarter is a victory for the networking equipment maker.

For the second fiscal quarter ended June 30, Netgear reported revenue of $357.7 million, up more than 11 percent from the same period one year earlier. But, net income was down 35 percent to just shy of $14 million.

SAP

CEO: Bill McDermott
June 28, 2013: $72.83
Sept. 30, 2013: $73.92
Change: 1.5%


The small gain in SAP's share price marks a turnaround for the software giant, whose stock price dropped nearly 10 percent in the first six months of calendar 2013. In July, Jim Hagemann Snabe, who had been serving as co-CEO with Bill McDermott, announced that he would step down in May 2014. That leaves McDermott solely in charge at the Waldorf, Germany-based company. Also in the third calendar quarter, SAP said that Eric Duffaut, president of SAP global ecosystems and channels, had decided to leave the company for personal reasons. SAP has been ramping up sales of its cloud applications and other new products such as its HANA in-memory database. But, the company reported slower sales of its software products in its fiscal second quarter ended June 30, raising questions about whether it was devoting enough attention to its core products.

Western Digital

CEO: Stephen Milligan
June 28, 2013: $62.09
Sept. 30, 2013: $63.40
Change: 2.1%


After seeing its stock value soar more than 46 percent in the first half of calendar 2013, the growth rate in Western Digital's share price grew at a more reasonable pace in the third calendar quarter.

Hard drive and SSD manufacturer Western Digital has been expanding the scope of its business through acquisitions, including buying Arkeia and sTec in the first half of the year. The acquisitions continued in the third calendar quarter when Western Digital announced a deal to buy flash storage developer Virident for $685 million, giving the company a strong flash storage portfolio.

Juniper Networks

CEO: Kevin Johnson
June 28, 2013: $19.31
Sept. 30, 2013: $19.86
Change: 2.8%


Juniper Network's small gain in share price was commendable given the rough time the company had in the third calendar quarter.

In July, CEO Kevin Johnson surprised Wall Street -- and everybody else -- by announcing his retirement. He continues to manage the company while Juniper's board looks for a replacement.

Juniper, meanwhile, continues to grow with new cloud and software-defined networking products. In September the company expanded its Partner Advantage channel program to offer partner specializations in those technologies.

Motorola Solutions

CEO: Greg Brown
June 28, 2013: $57.73
Sept. 30, 2013: $59.38
Change: 2.9%


Motorola Solutions reported a 2 percent drop in revenue to just over $2.1 billion for its second fiscal quarter ended Jun 29. But, net earnings were $258 million, up 42 percent from the same period one year earlier.

Motorola Solutions released a slew of new products and software updates on Oct. 1, including three new devices running on the "Jelly Bean" release of Android.

Dell

CEO: Michael Dell
June 28, 2013: $13.32
Sept. 30, 2013: $13.75
Change: 3.2%


It's no surprise there's been little change in Dell's share price, given that's around the price Michael Dell and his financial backers offered to take the company private for earlier this year in a deal now valued at $24.9 billion.

But that offer, of course, turned into a lengthy battle for control of the company as "activist shareholder" Carl Icahn made a counter offer and tried to win control of Dell's board. It wasn't until mid-September that Michael Dell won the duel and the board voted to accept his offer.

The upshot: This could be Dell's last few weeks as a public company.

CA Technologies

CEO: Michael Gregoire
June 28, 2013: $28.62
Dec. 31, 2012: $29.67
Change: 3.7%


CA Technologies' stock soared more than 30 percent in the first half of calendar 2013 as Michael Gregoire took over as CEO and moved to cut costs and consolidate some operations.

While the gain in the company's stock price has been more modest in the third calendar quarter, it's still going in the right direction. In July, the company reported that while revenue for the first fiscal quarter (ended June 30) was down 1 percent to $1.13 billion, net income was up an impressive 42 percent to $335 million.

Lexmark International

CEO: Paul Rooke
June 28, 2013: $30.57
Sept. 30, 2013: $33.0
Change: 7.9%


Lexmark, long known as a printer manufacturer, continues its transformation from a hardware-centric company to one focused more on software and solutions. In August, the company struck a deal to acquire Saperion AG, a European developer of content management systems, including document archiving and workflow technology.

In July, the company reported results for its second fiscal quarter ended June 30, including revenue of $886.7 million, down more than 3 percent from the same period a year earlier, and net income of $88.9 million, up 127 percent from one year before.

Oracle

CEO: Larry Ellison
June 28, 2013: $30.71
Sept. 30, 2013: $33.17
Change: 8.0%


The growth in Oracle's share price in the third calendar quarter marks a turnaround for the company's stock, which lost 7.8 percent of its vale in the first half of 2013.

While Oracle continues to struggle with declining hardware sales (down 14 percent in the first fiscal quarter ended Aug. 31), sales of the company's core software products like its flagship database continue to grow. The company is also building out its portfolio of cloud software and services.

Oh, and CEO Larry Ellison's sailboat won the America's Cup in September, coming from behind to beat the New Zealand team.

EMC

CEO: Joe Tucci
June 28, 2013: $23.62
Sept. 30, 2013: $25.56
Change: 8.2%


EMC, whose stock was down nearly 7 percent in the first half of 2013, had a busy summer. In July alone, for example, the company acquired ScaleIO and its technology for building private clouds, and bought Aveksa and its identity management and access governance software. The same month, EMC introduced an across-the-board upgrade of its data protection hardware and software products.

For the company's second fiscal quarter ended June 30, EMC reported a 5.7 percent increase in revenue to $5.61 billion, as well as a 7.8 percent gain in net income to $701 million.

Symantec

CEO: Steve Bennett
June 28, 2013: $22.48
Sept. 30, 2013: $24.75
Change: 10.1%


Symantec's stock continued its run in the third calendar quarter, adding another 10.1 percent to the 19.4 percent gain the company's shares recorded in the first six months of the year

Symantec reported 2 percent revenue growth to $1.71 billion in its first fiscal quarter ended June 28, as well as 1 percent growth in net income to $157 million.

Given that the CRN stock price analysis ends Sept. 28, it does not include any impact from the news Oct. 1 news that CFO James Beer is leaving to take a job with healthcare IT company McKesson.

NetApp

CEO: Tom Georgens
June 28, 2013: $37.78
Sept. 30, 2013: $42.62
Change: 12.8%


Data storage system maker NetApp took the first steps toward unveiling its long-awaited cloud strategy last month. That plan, built around the company's Data Ontap storage operating system, is designed to help customers build hybrid cloud systems by making storage available and portable regardless of cloud platform.

But, NetApp did have setbacks, including the September departures of the company's executive vice president of product operations and its director of technical marketing and cloud evangelist.

Xerox

CEO: Ursula Burns
June 28, 2013: $9.07
Dec. 31, 2012: $10.29
Change: 13.5%


While Xerox stock was a poor performer in 2012, the company has been on something of a roll in 2013. The company's shares gained 33 percent in value in the first half of the calendar year, and they picked up another 13.5 percent in the third calendar quarter.

For the company's second fiscal quarter ended June 30, Xerox reported sales of just over $5.4 billion, up 1 percent from the same period a year earlier. But, net income in the quarter declined 12 percent year-over-year to $271 million.

Check Point Software Technologies

CEO: Gil Shwed
June 28, 2013: $49.68
Sept. 30, 2013: $56.56
Change: 13.8%


Security technology developer Check Point saw the value of its stock grow a solid 13.8 percent in the third calendar quarter of 2013, following more tepid growth of 4.3 percent in the first six months of the year.

For the company's fiscal second quarter ended June 30, Check Point reported revenue of $340.2 million, up 4 percent from the same period one year earlier. Net income was $151.0 million, up 1 percent from one year before.

QLogic

Interim CEO: Jean Hu
Dec. 31, 2012: $9.73
June 28, 2013: $10.94
Change: 14.4%


QLogic got off to a rough start this year when in early May the developer of network infrastructure technology reported that sales in its fiscal year ended March 31 plunged 13 percent to $485 million. A couple of weeks later, the company announced that president and CEO Simon Biddiscombe had resigned with CFO Jean Hu taking over as interim CEO. And in early June, it implemented a restructuring plan that included layoffs and the consolidation of several engineering operations.

Hu remains interim CEO and the company's stock has gained in value. But the company isn't out of the woods yet. For QLogic's first fiscal quarter ended June 30, the company reported revenue of $113.1 million, a drop of more than 13 percent, and a net loss of just over $3 million.

CommVault Systems

CEO: N. Robert Hammer
June 28, 2013: $75.89
Dec. 31, 2012: $87.92
Change: 15.9%


The value of CommVault's stock has surged in the third calendar quarter, coming on top of an 8.6-percent gain in the first half of the year.

In August, the data management system vendor debuted the Simpana 10 data protection software with new VM archiving functionality that lets users automatically manage, move and recover unused virtual machines.

In July, CommVault reported that revenue in the first fiscal quarter ended June 30 grew 21 percent year-over-year to $134.4 million.

Lenovo Group

CEO: Yang Yuanqing
June 28, 2013: $18.09
Sept. 30, 2013: $21.07
Change: 16.5%


Lenovo has been one of the few companies having any success in the struggling PC industry. In July, market share numbers released by IDC showed that Lenovo had surpassed HP as the No. 1 vendor in the PC arena by shipping 12.6 million PCs in the second quarter (compared to HP's 12.4 million).

In August, the company reported that sales in its first fiscal quarter grew 9.7 percent to $8.79 billion, while net income surged 23 percent to $173.9 million.

The gain in Lenovo's stock price in the third calendar quarter is in contrast to the 1.1 percent decline in share value in the first half of the year.

Citrix Systems

CEO: Mark Templeton
June 28, 2013: $60.36
Sept. 30, 2013: $70.61
Change: 17.0%


After watching the value of its shares slump 8 percent in the first half of 2013, Citrix can now boast about the run its shares have been on in the third calendar quarter.

Sales in Citrix second quarter ended June 30 grew 19 percent to $730 million. But, net income declined more than 30 percent year-over-year to $64 million.

NetSuite

CEO: Zach Nelson
June 28, 2013: $91.74
Sept. 30, 2013: $107.90
Change: 17.7%


NetSuite shares were one of the strongest performing stocks on our watch list in the first half of 2013, rising more than 36 percent, and that surge has continued in the third calendar quarter.

The cloud application vendor has yet to turn a profit as the company's focus has been on growth. And growing it is, with sales in the company's second quarter (ended June 30) growing 30 percent to $101.0 million. And, the company's channel partners are benefiting from that: NetSuite's worldwide channel business grew more than 70 percent year-over-year in the second quarter.

Panasonic

CEO: Joseph Taylor
June 28, 2013: $8.09
Sept. 30, 2013: $9.61
Change: 18.8%


Panasonic continues to cash in on the world's growing demand for mobile devices, from its popular Toughpad tablets to such consumer electronic products as its waterproof Lumix camera.

Panasonic's stock price increased 33 percent in the first half of 2013, and that momentum continued into the third calendar quarter with a gain in value of almost 19 percent.

Apple

CEO: Tim Cook
June 28, 2013: $396.53
Sept. 30, 2013: $476.80
Change: 20.2%


There was lots of hand-wringing as Apple's share price dropped from its stratospheric highs of one year ago: The stock lost more than 25 percent of its value just in the first half of this year.

Apple reversed that trend in the third calendar quarter by growing its stock price by more than 20 percent, leading most of the IT vendors CRN tracked.

The long-term questions about whether Apple can remain an innovative leader persist. But, at least for the moment, the company continues to prosper. The company sold 9 million iPhone 5s and 5c smartphones during the weekend following their Sept. 20 launch in what proved to be yet another line-at-the-door event.

VMware

CEO: Pat Gelsinger
June 28, 2013: $66.19
Sept. 30, 2013: $80.9
Change: 20.8%


VMware was very near the bottom of the CRN list for the first six months of 2013 when the virtualization technology developer's stock lost almost 29 percent of its value. But, that turned around in the third calendar quarter, with the company ending up among those with the greatest gains in share price. During the quarter, VMware rolled out its much-anticipated NSX network virtualization technology and expanded its software-defined storage offerings with the VMware Virtual SAN Those are part of what VMware is calling the "software-defined data center."

On the downside, the company continued to lose key executives, some to competitors. In July, chief marketing officer Rick Jackson left to take over the same post at rival Rackspace.

Salesforce.com

CEO: Marc Benioff
June 28, 2013: $38.18
Sept. 30, 2013: $51.91
Change: 36.0%


Salesforce.com, which completed a 4-for-1 stock split in April, watched the value of its shares soar in the third calendar quarter as the company continued its breakneck growth. For its second fiscal quarter ended July 31, the company reported 31 percent revenue growth to $947 million.

Last month, Salesforce said it's running a private beta for Salesforce Files, the cloud-synching service it previewed at last year's Dreamforce under the name "Chatterbox."

The cloud service company also continued staffing up with recruits from arch-rival Oracle. In September, Salesforce hired longtime Oracle executive Anthony Fernicola as president of global enterprise sales.

Brocade Communications

CEO: Lloyd Carney
June 28, 2013: $5.76
Sept. 30, 2013: $8.05
Change: 39.8%


Networking technology vendor Brocade had the biggest third-quarter gain in its stock price amongst all the IT vendors followed by CRN. That comes on top of an 8.1 percent gain in the first half the 2013.

Brocade has been focusing its efforts on data center virtualization and software-defined networking. In September, the company said it would cut about 300 jobs from its 4,480 workforce as it realigned resources with those initiatives.

For its third fiscal quarter ended July 27, Brocade reported a 3 percent drop in revenue to $537 million.