Macquarie analyst Sarah Hindlian says he's been fielding numerous questions on implications from VMware's (VMW) purchase of Carbon Black (CBLK) with Crowdstrike (CRWD) investors concerned over its Dell (DELL) channel partnership. The analyst, however, sees little impact on Crowdstrike. While the Carbon Black purchase could create "some nepotism" in the Dell channel in favor of the Carbon Black product, Crowdstrike's March 2019 partnership is limited in size and unlikely to affect the company's trajectory, says Hindlian. Further, she believes the company's larger opportunity is Symantec's endpoint revenues. Ultimately, the analyst views Crowdstrike as best in class for endpoint security products. She keeps a Buy rating on the shares with a $100 price target.

UBS analyst David Vogt raised the firm's price target on Dell Technologies to $141 from $113 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The firm cites shorter GPU lead times and the broadening out of AI server demand from the hyperscalers to Tier 2 Cloud and ultimately Enterprise customers for the price target increase. UBS expects nearly 50% AI server unit growth in calendar 2024.

UBS raised the firm's price target on Dell Technologies to $141 from $113 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The firm contends that global AI related servers should increase 48% and 21% in 2024 and 2025 respectively, directionally acting as a tailwind for Dell's Infrastructure Solution Group / Server business despite sluggish legacy enterprise demand, the analyst tells investors in a research note. UBS adds however that it reduces its FY25 Client Solutions Group segment revenue forecast lower by 3.4% due to a slower PC recovery.

KeyBanc analyst Eric Heath lowered the firm's price target on Crowdstrike to $376 from $430 on lower peer multiples, while keeping an Overweight rating on the shares. The firm says that at some point, the case for optimism needs to be backed up by some optimistic data, and its 1Q24 VAR Survey did not deliver it. IT budgets are still in hiding at this point, with just 50% of KeyBanc's respondents meeting or exceeding their goal in the Q1, the lowest quarterly reading since the heart of the pandemic, and sentiment from the follow-up calls with some individuals also has down ticked. The firm's Q4 2023 VAR survey was iffy, the outlook in 2024 from its CIO survey in January was also not great, its SMB survey was worse than expected, and now 2024 is off to a difficult start - "let's just call a trend a trend," KeyBanc adds.