Following word from Apple (AAPL) yesterday morning that the company will discuss its “iCloud” initiative next week at its Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu this morning writes that the service is “a very big deal,” with the potential to further enhance the utility of the company’s iTunes program.

“We believe reaching cloud music deals would be a great start and further distance AAPL from GOOG, AMZN, MSFT, and others, which in the last 10 years or so have failed to put even a minor dent to iTunes.”

Wu maintains a Buy rating on Apple shares and a $460 price target.

Apple stock this morning is up $3.39, or 1%, at $351.22.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Do not be fooled by Lenny Dykstra, who will surely be using the campaign as a part of a scam to force people into giving over their pin numbers.

As part of the new campaign, Bank of America will bring some of the most exciting and celebrated players in the game today into select banking centers across the country, where they will surprise customers with free game tickets, autographed items and other baseball-themed giveaways during the opening weeks of the season. One star player from each of the following MLB clubs will make unannounced visits to banking centers in these U.S. cities on these dates:

New York Yankees – April 11
Boston Red Sox – April 14
Chicago Cubs – April 21
San Francisco Giants – April 21
Los Angeles Dodgers – April 28

Additionally, Bank of America will provide free vouchers to be used towards either ballpark concessions or game tickets to customers attending the home openers for five teams: the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants.

[BusinessWire]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

HP unveiled a smaller phone, based on the WebOS software from Palm, called the “Veer”

As anticipated, executives of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), discussing what they consider the $160 billion annual market for “connected devices” today unveiled at an event in San Francisco two such gizmos, a tablet computer called the TouchPad, and [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Companies keep using the phrase “cloud computing” to describe their services. I don’t think it means what they think it means.

That includes Sequoia capital-backed Meraki, a provider of wireless networks and access points that users can manage through the Internet. Meraki announced today that it has raised $15 million in its third round of funding.

Meraki develops software and hardware to create and manage wireless networks for larger enterprises and governmental organizations. The company manufactures actual wireless access points that users can manage through web-based interfaces, similar to some other online companies that offer their services through the web. The company generates revenue from a subscription-based model that includes access to its web services and sales of its routers.

But that doesn’t necessarily make it a cloud computing company — it’s more of a mesh networking company, meaning it lets its users manage a series of interconnected wireless access nodes that serve as receivers and broadcast points. Cloud computing involves a series of Web-connected networks and the ability to run services on remote servers, not just having a web-based interface for software. Meraki does use a web-based interface to manage its wireless networks — but users can access their routers from the Internet by definition because they are planted on a network.

Meraki plans to use the funding to spin up its marketing efforts and continue developing new wireless access points. Meraki has tried a few marketing stunts, like supplying four square miles of San Francisco with free wi-fi, but didn’t disclose what kind of marketing plans it has with its $15 million.

The latest round of funding brings Meraki’s total funding up to $40 million. Google has also backed the San Francisco, Calif.-based company, which was founded in 2006. Meraki’s clients include Starbucks, Toyota and Stanford University, and the company said it has deployed around 17,000 networks as of the end of 2010. DAG Ventures and Northgate Capital also participated in the most recent round.

Tags: cloud computing, mesh, networking, wireless networking

Companies: Meraki

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

For those who may have been disappointed with Cognizant Technology Solutions’s (CTSH) forecast this morning, which was roughly in line with analysts’ estimates, the message from CEO Francisco D’Souza is more or less to stay tuned — the year is young, after all.
Clearly, some people had concerns, given that Cognizant’s [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

UBS Securities software analyst Brent Thill today raised his price target on Salesforce.com (CRM) to $165 froma  prior $140, as the company’s “Dreamforce” user conference kicks off today at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.
Thill maintains a Buy rating on CRM shares, predicting that there will be “major announcements” regarding its products, [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

My good friend Eric Savitz, legendary founder of this blog you are reading, has started up his new gig over at Forbes.
Eric is now the San Francisco bureau chief for Forbes. However, he’ll also be maintaining a page called Tech Musings, where last night he posted an introduction, and where [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

There’s no easy way to say this, so here it is: this is my last post for Tech Trader Daily.
After 19 years at Barron’s, interrupted midway by three years on a dot-com adventure, I’m leaving the magazine to take a job as San Francisco bureau chief for Forbes. I start [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this afternoon, Federated Media chief John Battelle interviewed Yuri Milner, the CEO of the increasingly influential Russia-based Internet-focused investment fund Digital Sky Technologies. Here are some key points from the conversation:

Milner says they basically have two businesses. One holds their Russian properties [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Baidu (BIDU) CEO Robin Li was interviewed at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco this afternoon by John Battelle. Here are some key points from the conversation with the exec from China’s internet largest search engine:

This is the first time he’s been interviewed on stage at an industry conference [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily