Research Pit

[Jagman]

Long term buy and hold? Sun Micro (SUNW:Nasdaq - commentary - research) earned $121 million, or 4 cents a share, on sales of $2.98 billion in its fourth quarter. Adjusted earnings of 6 cents a share were 5 cents better than estimates. The company reported improvements in its book-to-bill ratio, product services backlog and its deferred revenue.

$3.85 close yesterday.

(clips from PR's)

And Sun has managed to maintain a sizable stockpile of cash and marketable securities -- now more than $7.5 billion.

Last month, it announced it would spend a large portion of that cash on two acquisitions it hopes will re-ignite growth.

"FY05 was a year of stabilized revenue and earnings," McNealy said. "Our opportunity for Y06 is sustained growth and profitability."

Following its usual practice, Sun did not release an earnings or sales forecast for the fiscal first quarter.

But Sun's president, Jonathan Schwartz, said the company would announce a major win with General Motors Corp. on Wednesday. The automaker will be deploying Sun's Java Enterprise System and Sun's Solaris 10 operating system. Terms of the deal and other details were not disclosed.