Seeking Alpha: Chronic Execution Issues Still The Story At Riverbed Technology

I've kept networking technology company Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ:RVBD) on my watch list primarily because I continue to see value in the business when, or if, management can finally iron out its ongoing execution challenges. Unfortunately, there's just no particular reason to believe the end of those challenges is in sight, so it is almost irrelevant that the Street seems a little too bearish on the growth potential of the businesses. I believe management is starting to run short on time; every fumbled quarter makes the relative certainty of Elliott Management's $21 bid look better and if a strong second half rebound doesn't materialize, shareholders may start agitating for that option.

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Chronic Execution Issues Still The Story At Riverbed Technology

Seeking Alpha: Riverbed Underrated, Or Perpetually Underperforming?

Management at Riverbed Technology (RVBD) has definitely put forth the effort to try to rally the troops and get the sell-side to take a more positive view of the company's growth potential. Given real issues in WAN optimization demand, not to mention a history of blaming "sales execution" for weak quarters and a disappointingly slow integration of Opnet, I can understand why the Street is responding with a "show me" valuation on these shares.

I have my doubts about both the quality of management at Riverbed and the company's overall business plan. While demand for performance optimization and management is not going away, I do have my doubts about how Riverbed will fare against the likes of Cisco (CSCO), F5 (FFIV), and Citrix (CTXS) as the market evolves. If you believe that Riverbed can do what it says it will and deliver high single-digit free cash flow growth, though, these shares do look undervalued enough today to be worth a close look.

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Riverbed Underrated, Or Perpetually Underperforming?

Investopedia: Riverbed Technology Waiting On Synergies And Performance Management Market

Companies deal with fading growth prospects in different ways. Some companies, like F5 (Nasdaq:FFIV) try to use relatively small-scale M&A and their own internal R&D to develop new products and enter into new markets. Others, like Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO) and Riverbed (Nasdaq:RVBD) take bigger swings on the M&A front, putting more of their shareholders' capital at risk in the hopes of bigger long-term rewards. While the growth prospects for WAN optimization are no longer as bright as they once were, Riverbed hopes to benefit from a more comprehensive suite of technologies and solutions for the network performance market, and the stock may just be cheap enough to be worth consideration.

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Investopedia: F5 Networks On Its Heels, But Hasn't Fallen Down Yet

There are only a handful of tech companies that aren't seeing significant pressure on their revenue growth these days, so in that respect F5 (Nasdaq:FFIV) is in good company. What's more troubling about F5, though, is the prospect that the company's core market (and its position within that market) has begun to fade significantly. Although F5 is cash-rich and has opportunities to reignite growth with new products for new markets, investors need to appreciate the risk that growth stagnates during this reconstruction period and that valuation alone won't be enough to support the stock.

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Investopedia: After The Hurricane, Is It Safe To Visit Aruba Networks?

There's a pretty good rule of thumb that applies to swimming and diving – if you can't see the bottom, don't dive in -- and think twice about swimming there. Likewise, jumping into a stock right after a significant revision to earnings expectation can be an invitation for successive disappointments, as companies don't often miss just one time.

With Aruba Networks (Nasdaq:ARUN), that leads to some tough choices for investors. While I definitely believe that the wireless networking (WLAN) is going to grow significantly, and that Aruba is well-positioned to take more share in the small/medium-sized business (SMB) space, I also acknowledge that WLAN spending is largely discretionary and this company could see further order/revenue disappointments if IT demand doesn't rebound during the summer.

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Seeking Alpha: The Street Doesn't Seem To Believe Radware Will Become A Player

Wall Street doesn't typically have all that much patience with tech growth stories, so while Radware's (RDWR) historical growth is hardly embarrassing, it doesn't seem like analysts or investors expect big things from this company in the future. Maybe that's fair given the slowing ADC market and the rampant competition in security, but Radware's technology and rich cash balance could generate more growth than currently expected.

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The Street Doesn't Seem To Believe Radware Will Become A Player

Investopedia: Riptides At Riverved Technology

If you invest long enough, you eventually get used to the idea that there can be a big difference between what analysts say and what they do. In the case of Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq:RVBD), there's ample skepticism about the company's ability to navigate a real slowdown in its core wide area network (WAN) optimization business and successfully produce a second act in application/network performance management.

While analysts say they're skeptical, the numbers they produce in their models point to significant growth potential at the company and real undervaluation. I've learned to be more skeptical of analysts' numbers than their "body language," and while Riverbed certainly has an opportunity to resume a good growth trajectory, that outlook has to be tempered with caution about its operational and execution capabilities.

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Investopedia: Cisco Making The Best Of A Tough Environment

With a host of tech companies taking their licks through earnings season (or shortly thereafter), including companies like F5 (Nasdaq:FFIV), Riverbed (Nasdaq:RVBD) and Juniper (Nasdaq:JNPR), investors were nervous going into Cisco's (Nasdaq:CSCO) earnings report. While Cisco's numbers don't reflect all that much strength in the tech markets as a whole, it was a solid result in a tough time and the guidance for the next quarter wasn't bad either. Cisco continues to look meaningfully undervalued, but this stock is likely going to need some time to work out.

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http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/Cisco-Making-The-Best-Of-A-Tough-Environment-CSCO-FFIV-JNPR-RVBD1115.aspx

Investopedia: Riverbed Pays Up For Its Next Shot At Growth

The ideal for every business (and investor) is to seamlessly transition from one growth opportunity to another, harvesting cash flow from older businesses and reinvesting it into new opportunities that can continue to expand the business. Not many companies can do this completely on their own, however, and must rely upon acquisitions to improve their growth prospects. That would appear to be the case with Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq:RVBD), as it has agreed to spend approximately $1 billion in cash and stock to expand into the fast-growing application performance management market.

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Investopedia: F5 Networks Managing The Slowdown Pretty Well

Once again, it looks like we have a summer of discontent for tech stock investors, as economic issues in Europe, the slowdown in China and the not-so-unusual summer malaise weigh on financial results and stock valuations. While networking equipment company F5 (Nasdaq:FFIV) has shown that it's not immune to these issues, the company's performance is holding up relatively well. Though not by any means a safe play or a value stock, investors ought to consider buying shares during this lull.

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Investopedia: F5 Networks Managing The Slowdown Pretty Well

Once again, it looks like we have a summer of discontent for tech stock investors, as economic issues in Europe, the slowdown in China and the not-so-unusual summer malaise weigh on financial results and stock valuations. While networking equipment company F5 (Nasdaq:FFIV) has shown that it's not immune to these issues, the company's performance is holding up relatively well. Though not by any means a safe play or a value stock, investors ought to consider buying shares during this lull.

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Investopedia: Disagreement May Mean Opportunity In Citrix Systems

It's not uncommon to find at least one or two contrarian analysts on a well-known tech company, but the environment around Citrix Systems (Nasdaq:CTXS) is more interesting than most. Simply put, there's a split between analysts who believe desktop virtualization and an all-around focus on cloud infrastructure will propel this into a major player, and those who believe desktop virtualization will never really take off and that competition in other markets will punish Citrix for its ambition. Where there's a split like that, there can often be both elevated risk and opportunity.

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Investopedia: New Products Need To Carry Juniper Back

Tech hardware is all over the map right now, with investors still quite pleased with F5 (Nasdaq:FFIV), relatively comfortable with Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO), and increasingly down on Riverbed (Nasdaq:RVBD) and Juniper (NYSE:JNPR). The story with Juniper is an interesting one, as this company looks for a revival in carrier spending and new products to return the company to its familiar ground as a growth company.

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Investopedia: Can Riverbed Walk And Chew Gum?

Here of late it seems like it's always something at Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq:RVBD). First, management blames turnover in its European operations for one bad quarter, then it's a slowdown in order due to upcoming new products. Now it's "poor sales execution" and deal slippage. When it all comes right down to it, though, investors now have ample reason to ask if this management team is one they can trust to deliver the goods on a sustained basis.

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http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/Can-Riverbed-Walk-And-Chew-Gum-RVBD-CSCO-FFIV-IBM0425.aspx

Investopedia: F5 Networks Becoming A Multi-Market Threat

As I have mentioned in prior write-ups on F5 Networks (Nasdaq:FFIV), I have a certain bias with regards to this company - namely, I hope it stumbles just enough that I can swoop in and buy up some shares. As this quarter shows, not only is F5 maintaining (if not extending) its lead in its core ADC market, but it's also seeing good initial results in incremental growth markets. While the valuation remains quite high, so too is the level of execution and the total addressable market at F5 Networks.

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http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/F5-Networks-Becoming-A-Multi-Market-Threat-FFIV-CTXS-CSCO-JNPR-CHKP0420.aspx

Investopedia: Cisco Sees Better Margins, Small Growth

The challenge for Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO) these days is pretty clear - show the Street that it can not only improve its margins, but also reignite growth and reclaim market share that it has lost to emerging competitors over recent years. Judging by the company's fiscal second quarter results, it looks like the company is making solid progress on the first goal, but has a ways to go on the others.

Better Than Expected Results for Fiscal Q2
Cisco did reasonably well relative to expectations for the second quarter. Revenue rose 11% from last year and 2% from the prior quarter to over $11.5 billion - beating the average analyst guess by a couple of percentage points.

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Investopedia: Riverbed Falls Out Of Bed

Outside of companies with big exposure to carrier spending, this has been a fairly upbeat quarter for tech hardware companies. Riverbed Technologies (Nasdaq:RVBD) wrecked that idyll to some extent on Thursday, warning investors that expectations for 2012 were too high. Although investors are booting this stock out of their portfolios on the day after earnings, a closer look at what's going on suggests a possible opportunity may be developing for patient investors.

Good Fourth Quarter Earnings, but... 
Riverbed posted pretty solid results for the fiscal fourth quarter. Revenue rose 23% from last year and 7% from the prior quarter, leading the company to beat the average estimate by a few million dollars. Product revenue was up 6% and ex-government revenue from enterprise customers was up strongly at 23%. Also encouraging, Riverbed's recovery in Europe continues, though the U.S. growth was not so impressive.

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Investopedia: F5 Networks On The Run Again

For all of the pessimism that seemed to be building about the outlook for tech in 2011, January's earnings reporting season seems to be swinging the market back to some degree of optimism. With a decent quarter in the books and management seeming pretty confident about the pipeline of new business, F5 Networks (Nasdaq:FFIV) looks as though it will enjoy yet another post-earnings run.

A Decent Start to the Fiscal Year  
F5 Networks reported fiscal first quarter earnings after the close on Wednesday and the results (and more importantly, the guidance) pleased the Street. Revenue rose 2% on a sequential basis (and 20% on an annual comparison). Product revenue was a little soft (down 0.5% sequentially), while software revenue climbed 7% and deferred revenue rose about 11%.


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Investopedia: Cisco Not Dead Yet

Every Monty Python fan has their own particular favorite bit, but certainly one of the best-known comes from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where John Young's character stubbornly proclaims to not be dead, despite the protestations and insistence of John Cleese's character. While this intro could apply to any number of once-great tech stocks, today's subject is Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO). While Cisco has indeed made many missteps and missed some significant opportunities, this networking giant is most certainly not dead yet. (For more, see Earning Forecasts: A Primer.)


More Share than Many People Think
Not unlike Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) in operating systems and consumer and business software, much is made of the share that Cisco is going to "inevitably" lose. That seems to fly in the face of the fact that Cisco presently enjoys high-60%'s share in switching, and more than 50% share in routing (with a considerably higher share in enterprise).

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http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/Cisco-Not-Dead-Yet-CSCO-FFIV-JNPR-HPQ0113.aspx

Investopedia: Service Providers Disconnect Juniper's Momentum

While tech stocks often trade in tandem when there's news from the major players, not all networking is the same. In other words, the problems that Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) is now facing are not necessarily directly translatable to Cisco Systems (Nasdaq:CSCO) or smaller vendors like F5 Networks (Nasdaq:FFIV) and Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq:RVBD). For Juniper, as for Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) and Acme Packet (Nasdaq:APKT), the story today is about weak spending in North America from the large service providers. (For more, see Earning Forecasts: A Primer.)

A Disappointing End to the Year  
Juniper announced January 9, 2012, that fourth quarter results were not going to meet Wall Street expectations. Instead of the average estimates of $1.19 billion in revenue and 34 cents in earnings, Juniper announced that results were going to be on the order of $1.11 billion to $1.12 billion and 26 cents to 28 cents.

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http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/Service-Providers-Disconnect-Junipers-Momentum-JNPR-CSCO-FFIV-HPQ-ALU0111.aspx