Outside of the usual suspects (new handsets or tablets introduced by its mobility partners), Immersion Corporation (IMMR) seems to be experiencing good momentum in several other segments, having recently achieved a few product wins that include both existing and new licensees.

As a reminder: Checking new products launched in the market by Immersion's partners is the best way to forecast the company's future success; the implementation of its haptic technology into more and more products is key to the company's financial performance, as Immersion collects a royalty per unit sold.

Checking Immersion's partner news web page is the best (and easiest) way to get confirmation about new product wins, even if they are not officially announced through a press release. The most recent update highlights at least three interesting devices -- one in the gaming segment and two in the commercial vertical.

Lexmark (LXK) recently introduced a color laser printer

A brief recap of this week in Apple [Down $6.31 (-1.8%)]:

• iPad 2 Shipping Time Reduced to 2-3 Weeks (Apr. 4 Apple)
• Apple Wins Reversal of $625M Patent Suit (Apr. 4 Bloomberg)
• NASDAQ 100 Rebalancing To Reduce Apple Weighting (Apr. 5 Seeking Alpha)
• Consumer Reports Ranks iPad 2 As Best Tablet (Apr. 5 Apple Insider)
• Apple Ordering Storage In Preparation For Possible Media Streaming (Apr. 6 Storage Newsletter)
• Motorola (MMI) Xoom Sales Forecast Reduced Dramatically (Apr. 6 Apple Insider)
• Apple Dominating Supply of Touch Panels (Apr.

When was the last time an analyst had a 'sell' recommendation on AAPL? Can't remember? Neither can I. But recently we have seen a few analysts and respected bloggers beginning to think the unthinkable - could AAPL's formidable track record be about to hit a blip?

All of this started with JMP Securities analyst Alex Gauna downgrading AAPL to Market Perform. Shocking, misguided, or possibly brave? JMP may have gone out on a limb to hit the headlines, and in that sense they certainly succeeded, but whatever you think about the legitimacy of that infamous downgrade it has prompted a flurry of speculation about AAPL's short-term health. With almost universally bullish sentiment surrounding the company, investors would be wise to take this opportunity to reflect.

There has been furious speculation about the condition of Apple's supply chain in light of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Just how much is

I am recommending risk tolerant investors take a short position in Motorola Mobility (MMI) and risk averse shareholders that already own MMI

Not everyone wants an iPad. Sure, I’ve played with Apple’s (AAPL) hot device, but I belong to another tribe; I love Research In Motion's (RIMM) Blackberry. That’s my disclaimer; I’m a Blackberry fan and brand evangelist. So while others rejoice in iPad 2 news, I’m eagerly awaiting the launch of the Blackberry Playbook. I actually expected to find RIM and the Playbook front and center at the CTIA Wireless show in March but was disappointed to find that they skipped the event this year to focus on their own Blackberry World conference in May.

With all of the buzz surrounding iPad 2, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, and Motorola’s (MMI) Xoom, I began to wonder how the Playbook will fare when it launches on April 19th. For answers, I leveraged the Compete panel of connected device users–part of our Smartphone Intelligence Report – and I was able to gather insights from consumers

Information Technology giant, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) is set to boost its cloud computing ambitions with the launch of its new computing service “Smart Cloud”.

Smart Cloud offers cost-effective data analysis, supply chain management and sales management capabilities to big companies that incur significant IT costs related to these operations. The Smart Cloud would enable the companies to store their data on IBM’s servers and access it securely over the Internet.

IBM’s sales pitch is focused on security and reliability, since the tech behemoth will be allowing the companies to configure resources to suit their own requirements for security, government compliance and backup.

According to IBM, the Smart Cloud will enable it to differentiate its cloud services from the usage-based resources currently offered by its rivals Amazon Inc. (AMZN), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Google Inc. (GOOG). We tend to agree, since the services provided by these companies are more

The next Dow Industrial member to pass through our quantitative modeling framework is Hewlett-Packard. Results of historical simulation suggest that Hewlett-Packard stock offers only a modest upside, even in the face of improving economic conditions. And the downside risks remain too large considering the existing alternatives.

At BCMC, we specialize in quantitative economic modeling. One of the applications we have developed is a quantitative framework for assessing the influence of economic growth on financial assets. This modeling framework can be split into two major components:

1. Forecasting the U.S. business cycle using statistical models.
2. Simulating stock performance based on business cycle swings over the past 20 years.

We start by projecting economic outlook by means of statistical modeling to get an idea of where we are in the business cycle and what lies ahead of us. The main tool in our toolbox – U.S. Monthly GDP model – suggests that economic

Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad 2 is off to a great start, building on momentum from the original version launched in April 2010. Apple recorded iPad 2 unit sales of close to 1 million in the very first week. Comparatively, it took the original version 28 days to hit that mark. ^[1] Although these figures are highly encouraging, the iPad 2 will have tough competition from other products like Research in Motion’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) PlayBook, as well as Samsung’s Galaxy tablet, Motorola Mobility’s (NYSE:MMI) Xoom, and Dell's (NASDAQ:DELL) Streak – all of which are based on Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android OS.

Amid the excitement and competition for the iPad, it’s interesting to note that the iPad represents only 7% of Apple’s stock value by our analysis. Hence any sudden surge in iPad unit sales actually has a limited impact on Apple’s stock value.

While we anticipate that Apple’s iPad 2 unit sales will cross

The morning paper reports that Dell (DELL) is the latest major IT company to be lured by the sirens of Silicon Valley. I suspect it won’t be much more successful than any of its predecessors.

The Merc leveraged Dell’s Tuesday press release to extend its report last week that the company was leasing 240,000 square feet in Santa Clara, and had 341 open jobs posted in the Bay Area.

The Dell news release summarized the decision:

Dell today announced plans to open the Dell Silicon Valley Research and Development Center, a new facility that will support Dell’s strategic expansion of solutions capabilities, including the areas of networking design and development, storage development and cloud computing. The new site complements Dell’s Israel Research and Development Center, announced last month in Ra’anana. Dell believes that with recruitment of additional staff, its workforce at the Silicon Valley site will grow to more than

Effectively Apple is being punished for being a well-managed high performer while Microsoft (MSFT), Google (GOOG), and others are being rewarded for lagging. While I understand the benefits of periodic rebalancing, I like to be in control and not be forced to sell great stocks to buy perpetual underperformers, especially in the same industry. I

By Brenon Daly

Announcing its first deal in almost five months, EMC moved to bolster its security management portfolio by picking up fast-growing NetWitness. The purchase adds the rich network data and powerful analysis capabilities of the NetWitness NextGen platform, which is a bit like a TiVo for network traffic – capturing, indexing and storing massive amounts of network traffic. From a financial point of view, it is EMC’s first significant security acquisition since buying RSA Security in mid-2006.

In fact, we would estimate that the price of NetWitness tops

A few months back, Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Steve Jobs called competitors’ 7-inch tablets “Dead on Arrival.” ^[1] Naturally, tablet manufacturers are a bit more optimistic. ^[2] So who is right? Here we take a look a closer look at Jobs’ case. Challengers to Apple’s market share in the tablet space include Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM), Motorola Mobility (NYSE:MMI), Samsung, Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and LG.

We maintain a $420 price estimate for Apple stock, which is about 20% above market price.

A Look at Steve Jobs’ Comments

Steve Jobs took a shot at the usability of the 7-inch tablets, claiming that tablets should have a 10-inch screen at a minimum. Apple has performed extensive user-testing, he noted, to reach these conclusions.

According to Jobs:

“One naturally thinks that a seven-inch screen would offer 70% of the benefits of a 10-inch screen. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. The screen measurements are diagonal,

A brief recap of this week in Apple [Down $8.59 (-2.4%)]:

• Potential Apple Battery Delays (Mar. 28 Wall Street Journal)
• iPhone 5 May Not Launch Until Fall (Mar. 28 Apple Insider)
• Apple WWDC Scheduled for June 6 (Mar. 28 Apple)
• Amazon Launches Cloud Drive (Mar. 30 New York Times)
• Apple Accepting Higher Costs to Secure iPad Components (Mar. 31 Gigaom)

This week in Apple stands in contrast to the past few because there was minimal real news

I don't own a massive amount of Apple (AAPL), but I am going to sell what I do hold. Shares of America's favorite company have traded in a frustrating range this year. I fully realize how my use of the word "frustrating" should serve as a red flag vis-a-vis my decision to sell. I've thought about it long and hard, however, and I know that I assume the risk of missing the run to $400 and beyond.

AAPL closed at $344.56 on Friday in a week that saw it range from a low of $343.30 to a high of $354.32. While I hardly view the stock as a

Using the Screener.co stock screener, and configuring the Markets to only include U.S. traded companies (NASDAQ, American Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, and Over the Counter), we are able to construct a screen for dividend-paying technology companies that meet the following criteria:

In addition to the conditions mentioned in the article title, we also require that forward EPS > DPS. When looking for operating companies that pay dividends, I tend to avoid firms that have dividends greater than their earnings. Another way to look at this would be to require DPS < operating cash flow per share; in both cases, the objective is to exclude companies whose dividend payments may not be sustainable.