Based on the aggregated intelligence of 145,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, storage management company NetApp
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at NetApp's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.
NetApp facts
Headquarters (Founded) |
Sunnyvale, California (1992) |
Market Cap |
$11.4 billion |
Industry |
Computer storage and peripherals |
Trailing-12-Month Revenue |
$3.5 billion |
Management |
CEO Thomas Georgens (since August 2009) |
Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years) |
13.7% |
Component of |
Powershares QQQ |
Cash / Debt |
$3.0 billion / $1.1 billion |
Competitors |
Cisco Systems |
CAPS Members Bullish on NTAP Also Bullish on |
Apple |
CAPS Members Bearish on NTAP Also Bearish on |
Accenture |
Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.
On CAPS, 13% of the 443 members who have rated NetApp believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bears include mpapile and LiquidPhoenix.
Last December, mpapile noted the competitive threats facing the company, including solid-state drives (SSD):
SSD drives are becoming more cost effective, and more people are getting into storage. While [NetApp] makes a very good solution right now, they are expensive.... [Sun Microsystems] is getting in with ZFS, and there are many open source disk management wares coming out. We have quite a few [NetApps], and will be reevaluating them next year.
In October, LiquidPhoenix gave NetApp investors something to be wary of:
NetApp has lost their way. While they used to have outstanding products and customer service they have fallen victim to their own success. In their attempt to take more market share from EMC by adding [storage area network] capabilities they weakened their product line and support organization. Until they realize this they will continue to disappoint customers and under perform.
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