Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, middleware and infrastructure software specialist TIBCO Software (Nasdaq: TIBX) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at TIBCO's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

TIBCO facts

Headquarters (Founded) Palo Alto, Calif. (1996)
Market Cap $4.31 billion
Industry Application software
Trailing-12-Month Revenue $872 million
Management Chairman/CEO Vivek Ranadive
CFO Sydney Carey
Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years) 9.8%
Cash/Debt $272.5 million / $38.7 million
Competitors IBM (NYSE: IBM)
Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL)
SAP (NYSE: SAP)

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 93% of the 415 members who have rated TIBCO believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include Gonzhouse and BenSaanich.

This past summer, Gonzhouse listed several of TIBCO's positives:

The last independent [business intelligence] vendor of good size left. Consistently growing market share, very profitable, on leading technology curve. A winner either way: if not taken over, will continue growth in the BI space. If taken over, should get a good premium.

Over the next five years, in fact, TIBCO is expected to grow its bottom line at a solid rate of 14.5% annually. That's slightly faster than competitors like IBM (11.8%), Oracle (13.6%), and SAP (13%).

CAPS member BenSaanich elaborates on the TIBCO bull case:

Because of the nature of the business, customers will become reliant on the software and tend to keep paying maintenance fees. TIBCO is dominant on Wall Street infrastructures and is likely to increase market share. For these reasons I expect TIBCO -- which serves a powerful market sector (although a niche) to keep growing. ... [T]heir offerings have a distinct edge in maturity over Oracle's former BEA products.

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