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Fortinet Crushes Q1 Model; Faces Palo Alto, Cisco With Platform Bet

Fortinet ( FTNT ) topped Wall Street’s Q1 views late Tuesday and threw down a platform gauntlet with a “Security Fabric” that could challenge Palo Alto Networks ( PANW ) and Cisco Systems ( CSCO ), a Dougherty analyst said Wednesday. In afternoon trading on the stock market today , Fortinet stock was up 7.5%, at a four-month high above 33. Shares of fellow cybersecurity firm Barracuda Networks ( CUDA ), meanwhile, were up 17%, at a three-month high near 18, after that company late Tuesday posted a fiscal Q4 and fiscal 2016 beat. But Summit Research analyst Srini Nandury says Barracuda has “too many moving parts” and won’t survive a mass small- and medium-business exodus to cloud products from the likes of Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Amazon.com ’s ( AMZN ) Amazon Web Services. Fortinet Tops On Service Revenue For Q1 ended March 31, Fortinet reported $284.6 million in sales and 12 cents earnings per share minus items, up a respective 34% and 50%, vs. the year-earlier quarter, and topping the consensus for $273.4 million and 9 cents. Billings flew 30% to $330.5 million, above Fortinet’s earlier guidance for $315 million to $322 million. Dougherty analyst Catharine Trebnick credited Fortinet’s sales beat to $160 million in service sales vs. expectations for $150.3 million. Billings from FortiSandbox, which offers advanced threat protection and virtual software, jumped 270% year over year. Bundling also helped drive outperformance, Trebnick wrote in a research report. Fortinet is pushing its “Security Fabric,” which attempts to holistically combine Fortinet’s products under “a single pane of glass.” “We believe this strategy could help incrementally improve margins and would generate more sticky revenue for the company from their SaaS components,” she wrote. “It remains to be seen whether they can outperform competitors such as Palo Alto Networks and Cisco Systems.” Trebnick boosted her price target on Fortinet stock to 40 from 38 and reiterated a buy rating. For Q2, Fortinet guided to sales of $301 million to $306 million, up 27% at the midpoint, and EPS ex items of 14 cents. Billings guidance for $365 million to $370 million would be up 24% at the midpoint. The consensus of 33 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters called for $300.8 million in sales and 15 cents EPS ex items. Barracuda SMB Customers ‘Hijacked’ Barracuda topped Wall Street’s billings and sales views for the first time in four quarters, William Blair analyst Jonathan Ho noted in a report. He reiterated his market perform rating on Barracuda stock, but questioned whether the company could survive the cloud transition. “The Barracuda story looks to have fundamentally changed, with the core value proposition of delivering IT solutions at low cost and complexity to SMB customers being hijacked by public cloud providers,” he wrote. For fiscal Q4 ended Feb. 29, Barracuda reported $83.7 million in sales and 15 cents EPS minus items, up a respective 16% and 114% vs. the year-earlier period, beating the consensus for $80.9 million and 8 cents. Billings were flat at $95.8 million. The company wrapped fiscal 2016 with $320.2 million in sales, 42 cents EPS minus items and $377.5 million in billings, up 15%, 50% and 4%, respectively. Sales and EPS flew past the consensus model of 16 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for $317.3 million and 35 cents. But fiscal Q1 is expected to decelerate markedly on a year-over-year basis. For the current quarter, Barracuda guided to $83 million to $85 million in sales, 10-11 cents EPS minus items and $94 million to $96 million in billings, up 8%, 2% and 1%, respectively, at the midpoints.

Ultimate Software Gains Momentum, Beats Street, Raises Forecast

Shares of enterprise software maker  Ultimate Software Group ( ULTI ) jumped 6% in morning trade before settling back, following Tuesday’s impressive first-quarter report, which beat Wall Street’s top and bottom lines. Ultimate, which specializes in HCM SaaS — human capital management software as a service — reported first-quarter EPS up 40% to 73 cents minus items, eight cents beyond consensus, on sales up 29% to $187 million, where Wall Street expected $180 million. With 2016 gaining momentum, Ultimate also raised its full-year forecast to 26% sales growth from 25% “and now claims 99% visibility into this goal,” noted Evercore ISI analyst Kirk Materne. Materne raised his price target to 200 from 195 “based on the continued acceleration in the business, especially in the midmarket,” he said in a Wednesday research note, reiterating a hold rating. “All in all, we believe the company remains on track to hit its $1 billion revenue target in 2018; and with the company’s current (2016) guidance implying (an approximately) 275 basis-point decline in recurring revenue growth in (the second half vs. the first half), we expect that estimates could potentially have room to move higher over the course of the year.” More bullishly, FBR analyst Samad Samana said in a Wednesday research note, Ultimate ultimately “can deliver accelerating revenue growth and margin expansion in 2016.” Samana raised FBR’s price target on Ultimate to 220 from 205 while maintaining an outperform rating. Climbing the right side of a 25-week cup base, Ultimate stock jumped 6% to 209.71 in morning trade before settling back to a 0.5% gain near 198 in the stock market today , 8% off a 216.27 record high set Nov. 9. Ultimate’s enterprise rivals and peers were mixed Wednesday, with Salesforce.com ( CRM ) down 1.5% to 75.05, while SAP ( SAP ) was up 1.2% to 80.43, less than 1% from recent highs. Legacy software developer Oracle ( ORCL ) was down fractionally. Microsoft ( MSFT ) was off 1%. One stock in IBD’s Computer Software-Enterprise industry group, that of cloud advertising software developer Rubicon Project ( RUBI ), enjoys a slightly better IBD Composite Rating than Ultimate: Rubicon’s best-possible 99 vs. Ultimate’s 98. Salesforce carries a 93 CR and SAP 72. Outside the group, Oracle is rated 60 and Microsoft 43. Ultimate’s 40% EPS growth rate was the best in eight quarters, but its 29% sales pace was the best in at least 19 periods. For the second quarter, Ultimate guided its adjusted operating margin to 20% and total sales to $187 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters are expecting earnings of 77 cents per share minus items on revenue of $185 million. A year ago in Q2, Ultimate earned an adjusted 62 cents per share on sales of $147 million. Needham analyst Scott Berg said he was “impressed” that Ultimate reported consecutive quarterly deferred revenue growth exceeding 30% in the first quarter and year-to-year deferred revenue up 34.5%, its best in at least six years. He reiterated a buy rating with a 220 price target.