Speaking to friends, the $1 trillion question that keeps arising is "when do we start buying?" Astute investors, they've certainly lightened up on their exposure to stocks over the past few months and have cash sitting on the sidelines. "Are we making a bottom here?" they ask, readying themselves to start moving back into the stock market. As asset allocation and modern portfolio theory tells us, stay in the market, be diversified, and don't trade on emotion. The problem is that investors doing that since 2000 would have seen little investment returns in exchange for taking on stock market risk.

So, with this info in hand, more aggressive investors are looking to spot a bottom and make a buck along the way. So, it's interesting to read weekly Barron's article out over the weekend entitled For the Bold Investor, This Could Be the Time to Buy Tech Stocks. The article, written by one of this author's favorite journalists, Eric Savitz, looks at Oracle's (NASDAQ: ORCL) recent performance as indicative for what's happening to tech. Citing Oracle's Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz, Savitz explains that deals were getting harder to close with some business slipping into the May quarter. Tough times for tech.

So why does Barron's think we should start buying now?

With the pervasive use of computers in our lives, the line between what's mine and yours sometimes gets blurred. I read an interesting post on TechDirt today that describes a patent that Big Blue, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) was awarded. The article, entitled "IBM Patents Real-Time Auto Insurance Surcharges," describes the patent as "Location-Based Vehicle Risk Assessment System, which describes how surcharges will be added to your auto insurance premium when a GPS device reports that you drove into an area in IBM's bad neighborhood database."

While this certainly sounds invasive, it's part of a larger trend in the insurance industry that actually benefits us consumers. In fact, I've written before about Pointer Telocation Limited (Nasdaq: PNTR), a small Israeli firm that markets technology similar to that of Lo-Jack's. In my interview with the Pointer Chairman, Yossi Ben Shalom told investors about a project underway in the U.S. called "Pay as You Go," in which insurance companies are testing programs with technology providers like Pointer that would revolutionize the auto insurance industry.

According to Ben Shalom, "Some people in the industry are talking about a discount or incentive program to build insurance policies on a multitude of parameters. Instead of just selling a policy based on the collective risk profile of the insured, "Pay as You Go" would calibrate premiums on a month-to-month basis based on specific data on how and who drove the car. Imagine a policy that didn't charge a family with a 16-year old driver when he didn't drive the car that month. Which roads the insured drove on, who drove the car, when the car was driven – all this data can be supplied via Pointer equipment to an insurance firm. There are some small pilot tests going on currently which we are involved in. Right now, we're talking about a very small percentage of the overall market but this could be a big driver for Pointer in the future because you need our technology for this."

Looks like IBM wants to get in on a project that could ultimately lower our auto insurance premiums. Clearly, no one wants their insurance company or anyone spying on them but with the right incentives and consumer protections, this new technology and new program could be great, no?

Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.

Shares of Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) fell in after-hours trading after the software maker reported inline earnings, indicating a slowdown in technology spending by businesses.

Net income rose 30% to $1.3 billion, or 30 cents per share, on revenue of $5.3 billion, according to the earnings press release. Analysts were expecting profit of 30 cents on revenue of $5.42 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

Until now, Wall Street was in love with the stock, sending the shares up about 13% this year at a time when many big-cap tech stocks have done poorly. This is the type of company that has conditioned investors to expect continued outperformance.

In fact, Bloomberg News went so far as to note: "Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison, who led the software maker on a $33.5 billion spending spree, did more than add 39 businesses and 20,000 customers. He bought armor against a U.S. economic slump."

Guess that armor has some kinks in it now.

Tonight's conference call should be lively. The stock will fall even further if the company's guidance isn't extraordinarily optimistic.

Shares of Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) have been soaring after the company reported yesterday after the market closed that its first-quarter profit jumped 52%, helped by strong demand for its design tools. The software maker also issued a stronger-than-expected sales and earnings outlook, despite fears of an economic slowdown.

For the quarter, Adobe Systems reported that its profit climbed to $219.4 million, or 38 cents a share, boosted by strong sales from its software tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Acrobat. Excluding special items, the company's earnings came in at 48 cents a share, topping analysts' estimations for quarterly earnings of 45 cents a share.

Adobe Systems also announced a respectable 37% growth in revenues, to $890.4 million, up from $649.4 million a year earlier. Revenue during the period was helped by a 57% increase in its Creative Suite 3 solutions sales which rose up to $543.5 million in the quarter. Analysts, on average, were expecting the company show $876 million in revenue, according to Thomson Financial.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Apps is a set of server-based word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software created to go after a number of the features of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows. While Windows uses the memory of the PC, Google's product runs over the internet on Google's servers.

Microsoft is getting sick of having sand kicked in its face. The big software company said that it would increase "the availability of its online services for e-mail and collaboration software," according to Reuters. The software had been available to smaller businesses but now it can be used by companies of any size.

Google claims that it has signed up 500,000 businesses to use Google Apps. That has to be a real headache for Microsoft.

Now, Redmond is forced to walk a fine line. If it offers too many services over the internet at too low a price, it could cut into its profitable Vista franchise. Most of Microsoft's margins are based on Windows, its server software, and Office. If the margins on those fall, the company's stock price is likely to take a large hit.

The news is another example of how Google is bedeviling the world's largest software company and hitting it where it hurts most, in its large profit centers.

Microsoft's problem may be that it cannot do anything about the problem other than match Google's products and probably drop what it charges. It is an unhappy option.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

I have a bitter-sweet relationship with Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE). I think they build great technology. In fact, I've been a customer of their Dreamweaver product since 2000. It's an awesome offering -- and gets better and better.

Yet, when it comes to Adobe's upgrade policies, they often fall short -- at least for me. For example today they wanted to charge me full price for a product that I've bought and upgraded several times over the years.

Oh, well. End of my rant.

The fact remains that Adobe continues to innovate. Interestingly, the company has recently announced a variety of initiatives. For example, Adobe is sponsoring the SQLite database open source project (according to the company's open source thought-leader, Dave McAllister). The company also has new open source destination.

With "tax time" fast approaching, Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) is perhaps one of the few that are happy. After all, it sells the dominant tax software product, TurboTax.

Yet, as seen with the fiscal Q2 results, things are not so rosy. Revenue increased 11% to $834.9 million and profit was $115.2 million, or 34 cents per share, down from $145.4 million, or 40 cents, a year earlier.

True, Intuit's tax business remains strong (especially the online sales). However, the company is showing some strains with its QuickBooks line (which is an accounting system for small business).

So, is this because of the slowing economy? Well, according to the conference call, Intuit wasn't sure. For example, the problem could be the result of the timing of marketing expenditures. Or, there may be strains from the credit crunch (such as the difficulties of refinancings and even getting credit lines).

As a result, it should be no surprise that Intuit has provided meager guidance. Basically, the company expects revenue growth of 5% to 7%.

Although, looking for the long haul, Intuit remains optimistic. For example, the company recently purchased Homestead, which provides websites for small businesses. This should be a nice cross sell with other Intuit products. What's more, Intuit's payroll business is still strong.

But, in today's trading, Intuit's shares are getting slammed – down 11% to $26.53.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Even for a company the size of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), the $44.6 billion buyout proposal for Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) is a big bet. And it's expensive. Hey, just look at Yahoo's feeble attempts to ward off the bid (such as a deal to merge with MySpace).

On its face, it looks like Microsoft wants several things: the Yahoo brand, the assorted content properties, applications (like Flickr) and the lucrative display-ad business.

But perhaps there is more? Well, according to a recent piece in the New York Times, it looks like Microsoft may also be using the deal to bolster its hugely profitable Office franchise.

In other words, Microsoft will be able to offer low-cost or free versions of its software and monetize it with the large amounts of Yahoo traffic. It's something that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is already aggressively pursuing.

So, to get perspective on things, I had a chance to talk to David Koretz, who is the CEO and founder of BlueTie (which offers web-based email applications). According to him:

The 2008 Olympics will prove to be a profitable endeavor for lots of companies. We've spoken previously about ClickSoftware (NASDAQ: CKSW), a niche software player with workforce management solutions to manage service networks. (To learn more about the firm, read this article.)

So, how do you effectively manage a temporary but highly critical workforce for an extremely large, extremely high-profile public event?

One answer is by striking a deal with CKSW, which is exactly what's happened. ClickSoftware announced today that the firm has landed a deal via its Chinese reseller to "manage the field activities of hundreds of telecommunication technicians during the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in China."

After investors were disappointed with last quarter's earnings, this may be the win ClickSoftware's been looking for on the way to gold.

Zack Miller is the Managing Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. Author does not own CKSW.

Virtualization is certainly a killer technology (essentially allowing for better utilization of software, servers, data centers and so on). It's also a big money maker, as seen with the performance of VMware (NYSE: VMW).

But Citrix is also ramping up on virtualization. It helps that the company has a robust technology platform. Hey, just look at the company's Q4 results. Revenues increased 25% to $399.6 million and profits went from $52.9 million, or $0.29 per share to $62.8 million, or $0.33 per share. License revenues increased a healthy 24% to $178 million.

There was strength across the board, such as with its Presentation Server (there were six deals with price tags over $1 million) and the online services division, which saw a 37% increase in revenues over the past year to $59 million.

But the big bet is on XenSource, a cutting-edge provider of virtualization technologies (Citrix recently purchased the company). It's still in the early stages but it looks like the growth may be explosive. For example, Citrix has key deals with Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). The goal is to get to $50 million in revenues for 2008. And, keep in mind that – according to a study from ITC – the market for virtualization software and services is expected to reach $15 billion by 2011.

So far, investors seem to be excited. In today's trading, Citrix's shares increased 7.16% to $34.29.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported very strong numbers last night, and actually raised guidance for '08. "Revenue of over $16 billion this quarter exceeds our previous record by $2 billion," said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "We are extremely pleased by the broad based strength of our business performance and field execution. Throughout the first half of our fiscal year, all of our businesses met or beat our expectations."

In a conference call with analysts, Liddell said that the earnings were the result of "demand from enterprise customers, combined with healthy holiday consumer spending."

"They were good results," said McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Sid Parakh told MarketWatch. Moreover, the software giant "still thinks the business-spending environment is pretty healthy, which is good from an overall tech-spending perspective," the analyst said.

By listening to the media and the banks complaining how bad everything is, I would have thought that we are in the midst of a really bad recession. How could it be that Microsoft see things differently? Could it be that the media has some kind of political agenda, and the banks want us to pay for their lousy investments? Could it be that things are not so bad?

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has no position in any stock mentioned as of 1/25/08

Over the years, I've used a variety of blogging platforms. So far, my favorite is WordPress, which is the mastermind of Automattic.

Today there's some good news for WordPress users -- the company snagged $29.5 million in a round of financing. The investors include Polaris Venture Partners, True Ventures, Radar Partners and the New York Times (NYSE: NYT).

And yes, the founding developer of WordPress, Matthew Mullenweg, has a blog post about the funding and the company's history. Keep in mind that there have been more than 5.8 million downloads of the software, with over 3.8 million in 2007. With such a base, the company has been generating a good amount of revenues (and now has about 18 full-time employees).

Writes Matt: "Automattic is now positioned to execute on our vision of a better web not just in blogging, but expanding our investment in anti-spam, identity, wikis, forums, and more -- small, open-source pieces, loosely joined with the same approach and philosophy that has brought us this far."

If you want to see other interesting venture capital investments, visit DealProfiles.com.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

The European Commission has launched a new antitrust investigation against software giant Microsoft, alleging that the company abused its market dominance, Reuters reported.

Following complaints by Norway-based Web browser company Opera, and a coalition of technology companies, the EU will inquire as to whether Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) broke EU competition rules to help its Web browser and its Office / Outlook products.

Microsoft's a focus, again

The inquiry comes four months after Microsoft lost its Europe appeal of a case in which officials ruled that the company had illegally tied its Media Player to the Windows operating system and had failed to disclose information that would make other server software company's products operate on the Windows system, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.

Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) business division is one of its most profitable operations. Stephen Elop, an executive at network equipment company Juniper (NASDAQ: JNPR), will come to Redmond to head the part of the company that produces Office software applications. Jeff Raikes, who runs the business now, has been at the company since 1981.

It would be easy to assume that Mr. Raikes has made hundreds of millions of dollars at Microsoft, and would simply like to take his cash and have a little rest. But, as The Wall Street Journal points out, "a host of new competitors try to pick away at Office with Internet services." That list of competitors is lead by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Microsoft has demonstrated through recent M&A activity that it is willing to increase its revenue beyond its traditional software business in areas such as search and internet advertising. But for the next several years the company's cash flow is going to come from its traditional products like Windows and Office. These now operate using the processing power and storage of the computers where they sit. Google is putting products into the market that operate on the PC but use the company's servers to do much of the work.

Raikes may be leaving because you can't teach an old dog new tricks. With Google coming after it, Microsoft needs to hope that it can teach its new dogs new tricks.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) launched its new Android cellphone software with a big PR blitz. The new system would allow thousands of developers to write applications for handsets. The operating system would open up a closed system that had allowed cellular carriers to dominate what features people could get on their phones.

The plan may have run into a wall. There appear to be a number of bugs in the developer software for Android, which are driving developers trying to build applications for it crazy. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Google said the software kit it released last month amounts to an 'early look' designed specifically to get developers started as soon as possible and to elicit their feedback."

The feedback is ugly. Google says it is cleaning the software up.