NetApp Inc

NetApp shares jumped 6% in the afternoon session after the data storage company unveiled a new AI factory architecture at its Insight conference, according to TipRanks. The company also launched Keystone Sovereign for regulated markets and expanded its partnerships with Oracle and Supermicro. The combined package of AI factory architecture, sovereign cloud storage, and larger OEM ties sparked optimism among investors and analysts, who lifted their price targets on the back of the AI storage narrative. NetApp is up 113% since the beginning of the year and, at $226.50 per share, has set a new 52-week high. The stock has been volatile, with 12 moves greater than 5% over the last year, and its biggest recent move came four months ago, when it gained 26.4% after reporting first-quarter 2026 results that beat expectations, with revenue up 12.5% year-over-year to $1.95 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $2.43.

NetApp delivered a record first quarter of fiscal 2027, with non-GAAP earnings of $2.58 per share, up 66.5% year over year and beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.13 by 21.1%, sending shares up about 16% since the report. Net revenues rose 29.9% to $2,025 million, surpassing the $1,843 million consensus mark by 9.9%, while billings increased 36.1% to $2,057 million. Within the total, Hybrid Cloud revenues advanced 30.1% year over year to $1,819 million, all-flash array revenues reached a record $1,309 million, up 46.6%, and Public Cloud revenues grew 28% to a record $206 million; together, all-flash and Public Cloud represented 75% of quarterly net revenues. The quarter included an additional week that contributed approximately $65 million to revenues, mainly from support and Public Cloud, and excluding that benefit total revenues increased 26% year over year. For fiscal 2027, NetApp now forecasts revenues of $7.975-$8.225 billion, with the $8.10 billion midpoint representing 17% growth and a $650 million increase from prior guidance, and earnings of $9.73-$10.03 per share, whose $9.88 midpoint represents 22% year-over-year growth.

NetApp introduced Novus, a new storage architecture built to maximize GPU utilization, at its Insight event on Tuesday, drawing a positive but measured response from Wall Street analysts. Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring said in a Wednesday note that Novus disaggregates metadata from the data path, allowing metadata, performance, and capacity to scale independently while maintaining a unified namespace, and that NetApp stated the architecture is designed to support AI environments exceeding 100TB/s of throughput and ultimately scale to zettabyte-sized deployments. Woodring said Morgan Stanley views Insight 2026 as further evidence that NetApp is extending its solution set and total addressable market beyond traditional enterprise storage, positioning itself as a broader AI data infrastructure platform, though the firm retained its Equal-weight rating and $191 price target. Citi highlighted that Novus addresses an AI storage market that could swell from $20B to $40B over the next three years, while maintaining its Neutral rating. Oppenheimer called the direction positive but said it awaits execution and feedback before turning bullish, keeping its Market Perform rating intact. NetApp shares inched up by noon trading on Wednesday.

NetApp is positioning its Keystone Sovereign offering to serve regulated industries in Europe, initially targeting qualified customers in Germany and France with additional European countries planned. The offering will provide additional regional, operational, support and data-handling controls intended to help qualified European customers keep critical data and support within specified geographic boundaries. Keystone is NetApp's storage-as-a-service offering, and its revenue grew about 65% in fiscal 2026; in first-quarter fiscal 2027, Professional Services revenues rose 15.5% to $112 million, mainly driven by continued Keystone growth. At NetApp's INSIGHT 2026 conference held yesterday, the company also announced NetApp Novus, a high-performance file system designed to feed data to GPUs, and native ONTAP storage support for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, alongside partnerships spanning SAP, Oracle and Super Micro Computer. NetApp shares have gained 76.5% in the past year compared with the Computer-Storage Devices industry's rise of 318.4%, and the stock carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

SAP and NetApp announced an expanded partnership focused on deeper cloud native integration into SAP Cloud Infrastructure. The collaboration aims to strengthen security, resilience, and performance for SAP and customer workloads running on SAP Cloud Infrastructure, plugging more of NetApp's storage and data services directly into the platform across multiple regions and availability zones. Both companies plan to explore joint go to market initiatives and assess new technology integrations within SAP Cloud Infrastructure services. SAP, a €213.6 billion software group, sells enterprise applications and business solutions that help large organisations run finance, operations and data heavy workflows. Investors are watching for validation of NetApp Object storage inside SAP Cloud Infrastructure, disclosures on joint go to market deals, and customer case studies showing SAP and non SAP workloads moving onto the platform at scale.

NetApp and Supermicro announced a strategic collaboration to deliver jointly validated AI infrastructure solutions spanning large-scale AI factories, enterprise deployments, neoclouds, and sovereign AI initiatives. The joint offering combines Supermicro's AI-optimized compute and rack-scale systems with the NetApp Platform, and the companies say it will help customers accelerate deployment, improve GPU utilization, strengthen data governance, and reduce operational complexity. As an initial implementation, NetApp and Supermicro will deliver NetApp Novus Data Director software running on qualified Supermicro servers with NetApp AFF A90 systems as the high-performance ONTAP data layer, a first step in a broader effort to co-engineer integrated infrastructure for enterprise AI, neocloud, sovereign AI, and large-scale AI factory environments. The two companies are also collaborating on NetApp AIPod with Supermicro, a NetApp-validated converged infrastructure architecture based on NVIDIA Reference Architecture guidance that supports AI training, inference, and agentic workloads from dozens to hundreds of GPUs. Alvaro Celis, Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial, Partner and Ecosystem Officer at NetApp, said the combination gives customers secure, reliable AI solutions they can deploy quickly, while Supermicro Chief Revenue Officer Matthew Thauberger said it offers a validated path where infrastructure and data are designed to work together from the start.

NetApp announced new capabilities that let enterprises activate data in place with zero-copy access to accelerate agentic AI adoption. The heterogeneous metadata capability of NetApp AI Data Engine now extends metadata discovery across the full enterprise data estate, including NetApp ONTAP, StorageGRID, and non-NetApp storage, spanning NFS, SMB, and S3 repositories. NetApp is also previewing upcoming AIDE innovations, including expanded AI-powered data understanding, deeper governance intelligence, open analytics integrations with engines such as Starburst and Onehouse.AI, and new agentic services. An expanded integration with Commvault connects the NetApp Platform to Commvault recovery orchestration, delivering near-real-time threat detection, cleanroom validation, and advanced clean recovery from the Commvault console, enabling joint customers to recover in minutes rather than days or weeks. Asad Khan, Senior Vice President and General Manager of AI at NetApp, said the agentic enterprise will be defined by how quickly and safely organizations turn data into intelligence, while Commvault Chief Technology and AI Officer Pranay Ahlawat said the integration helps customers reduce mean time to clean recover.

NetApp announced NetApp Keystone Sovereign, a new Storage-as-a-Service offering that will enable qualified European customers to use data sovereignty controls in support of their compliance and data residency journeys. The offering is designed to keep data and support within specified geographic boundaries through European-based data residency for relevant customer data, logs, backups, and telemetry, European-based support and escalation paths, European-controlled access and management processes, clear documentation of telemetry, monitoring, and data flows, and contractual and legal structures that reinforce sovereignty expectations. Ivan Iannaccone, Vice President and General Manager, Keystone at NetApp, said data sovereignty has become a strategic requirement as organizations demand greater control over the technical and operational conditions that govern their data. Initial pilots for Keystone Sovereign will be available for Germany and France, with additional countries planned to be added. Simon Robinson, Chief Analyst, Storage & Data Infrastructure at Omdia, said the market opportunity for offerings like NetApp Keystone Sovereign is emerging as customers move beyond generic data residency requirements toward broader assurances around technical oversight, operational access, and support boundaries.

NetApp announced new hybrid multi-cloud capabilities with autonomous controls designed to maximize enterprise flexibility and efficiency across on-premises and cloud environments. The offerings include NetApp Keystone Sovereign, which gives qualified European Economic Area customers data sovereignty controls covering data residency, technical, and regional considerations, and NetApp Console Autonomous Operations, which replaces manual approval loops with outcome-based automation that runs securely in air-gapped environments. NetApp Console Fleet Management adds a second Console delivery model installed directly in the customer's environment, while the NetApp Console AI ChatOps Interface delivers autonomous storage operations, intent-based provisioning, and policy guardrails across ONTAP storage systems through an open LLM gateway. NetApp also said it is partnering with Nutanix to combine NetApp ONTAP with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure for virtualized workloads, with general availability scheduled for this fall. Sandeep Singh, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Platform at NetApp, said customers should not have to choose between the performance and control of on-premises infrastructure and the flexibility of cloud.

NetApp announced NetApp Novus, a next-generation storage architecture it calls the fastest storage on the planet, designed for AI infrastructure providers running large GPU environments. The architecture is built to support a zettabyte-scale file system and is architected for up to 100 TB per second aggregate throughput, allowing AI factories to keep millions of GPUs continuously fed with data. The initial Novus release combines NetApp Novus Data Director, the metadata software, running on qualified Supermicro infrastructure with NetApp ONTAP data services delivered through AFF A90 systems, creating a disaggregated architecture built to exceed 100TB per second and support high utilization of hundreds of thousands of GPUs. NetApp said the architecture is orderable today and provides a path to software-defined deployments over time while maintaining the same namespace, operating model, and data foundation. Syam Nair, Chief Product Officer at NetApp, said HPC-era storage alone cannot serve AI Factory scale and that Novus delivers 100 TB/s of unlimited scale-out performance.

NetApp and Oracle announced a new fully managed storage service that brings enterprise-grade NetApp storage natively to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The service, called Oracle Cloud Infrastructure NetApp Storage Service, will bring NetApp ONTAP data management capabilities natively to OCI to help organizations simplify migration and management of critical AI and enterprise workloads in the cloud. It is designed to help enterprises migrate, run, protect, and modernize databases, enterprise applications, virtualized environments, EDA/HPC, regulated applications, and AI data pipelines while preserving familiar storage operations, and customers can manage it through the OCI Console and SDKs, ONTAP APIs, and familiar operational workflows. Pravjit Tiwana, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cloud Storage and Services at NetApp, said customers want the flexibility to move AI and enterprise workloads to the cloud without giving up operational simplicity, data management, and reliability, while Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Senior Vice President of Partnerships at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, said enterprises shouldn't have to rebuild their data infrastructure to move to the cloud. Alvaro Celis, Senior Vice President, Chief Commercial, Partner and Ecosystem Officer at NetApp, said the partnership combines OCI's scale and performance with NetApp's enterprise data capabilities to help customers run mission-critical workloads, especially in regulated industries. OCI NetApp Storage Service is planned for general availability within the next 12 months.

NetApp, Inc. plans to acquire PEAK:AIO in a deal aimed at strengthening its AI-storage portfolio by combining PEAK:AIO's metadata architecture and parallel file-system technology with NetApp's ONTAP platform. PEAK:AIO's technology disaggregates metadata from data so metadata services can scale independently, extending metadata scalability with a global namespace and parallel NFS-based access for AI environments containing trillions of files and multi-exabyte datasets. The move extends a recent acquisition spree by NetApp, which bought JetStream Software in August for VMware disaster recovery and migration and DataPelago in July to add GPU-accelerated data processing to the storage layer. Competition remains intense, with Hewlett Packard Enterprise broadening its reach through the Juniper acquisition and earlier deals including Morpheus Data, OpsRamp, Axis Security, Athonet, Pachyderm, Zerto, Determined AI and CloudPhysics, while IBM deepens its hybrid cloud and data platforms through the Confluent buyout completed in the first half of 2026 and HashiCorp, with Red Hat revenue growth accelerating to 11% in the second quarter and debt at $62 billion as cash and marketable securities fell to $8.2 billion from $14.5 billion in 2025. NetApp shares have gained 69.7% in the past year compared with the Computer-Storage Devices industry's rise of 330.3%, and the stock trades at a price/book ratio of 26.43 versus the industry's 15.62, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2027 earnings has been revised upward over the past 60 days.

NetApp announced its intent to acquire PEAK:AIO, a pioneer in next-generation metadata architecture and high-performance parallel file systems, in a deal that remains subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. The planned acquisition is expected to accelerate NetApp's AI infrastructure roadmap by augmenting metadata services and parallel namespace innovation designed to help AI clouds scale shared storage alongside growing GPU clusters. By combining PEAK:AIO's specialized metadata innovations with NetApp ONTAP software, the company said customers will gain a differentiated architecture that preserves the resilience, security, and operational maturity of ONTAP while introducing a new level of scalability for AI workloads. The architecture is intended to support trillions of files and multi-exabyte deployments, combining scalable metadata services, standards-based parallel NFS access, and ONTAP as the resilient data foundation to help reduce data-related GPU stalls and improve infrastructure efficiency. PEAK:AIO's technology originated from collaborations with leading research institutions, including Los Alamos National Laboratory and Carnegie Mellon University, and is deployed at organizations including NHS AIDE, Oxford Robotics Institute, University of Liverpool, University of Strathclyde MediForge Hub, and the Zoological Society of London. NetApp Chief Executive Officer George Kurian said AI clouds need high-performance shared storage that can scale alongside growing GPU clusters while maintaining the resilience, security, and operational simplicity organizations depend on, and PEAK:AIO Chief Technology Officer and Founder Mark Klarzynski said joining NetApp pairs his company's culture of innovation with the reach, scale, and customer trust of a global leader.

NetApp raised its fiscal 2027 guidance after opening the year with record first-quarter revenue of $2.03 billion, up 30% year over year. The company now projects fiscal 2027 revenues between $7.98 billion and $8.23 billion, with the $8.10 billion midpoint implying 17% year-over-year growth and standing $650 million above the prior guidance. NetApp also lifted its operating margin forecast to 30.3-31.3% and its EPS guidance to $9.73-$10.03, with the midpoint representing 22% growth. In the quarter, NetApp secured roughly 350 AI and data lake modernization deals, while all-flash array revenues reached $1.31 billion, rising 47% year over year. Management said AI-driven modernization, robust all-flash demand and broader portfolio strength underpin confidence in sustaining momentum through the year.

NetApp has been assigned a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) as covering analysts sharply raised their earnings estimates for the data storage company. For the current quarter, the company is expected to earn $2.60 per share, a change of +26.8% from the year-ago reported number, and the Zacks Consensus Estimate has increased 21.61% over the last 30 days, with eight estimates moving higher and no negative revisions. For the full year, the earnings estimate of $10.05 per share represents a change of +23.6% from the year-ago number, and that consensus estimate has risen 13.73% over the past month, again with eight estimates moving higher and none lower. NetApp shares have added 6% over the past four weeks. The Zacks Rank system ranges from a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) to a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell), and Zacks #1 Ranked stocks have generated an average annual return of +25% since 2008.

NetApp has been named an official partner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, expanding its existing relationship with the National Football League, for which it already serves as the Official Intelligent Data Infrastructure Partner. Under the new partnership, the Buccaneers will use NetApp Keystone, a subscription-based service providing performance, intelligent data management and high availability across data centers and cloud environments, to support the fan experience at Raymond James Stadium on game days and across the team's digital platforms. Buccaneers chief commercial officer Atul Khosla said reliable and secure access to data is an important part of the game-day experience. The deal follows the Buccaneers' first regular-season game of the 2026 season against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 13. On its first-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings call, NetApp said it closed approximately 350 AI and data lake modernization deals during the quarter, and it also signed a significant agreement with Samsung Electronics to support its EDA environment and AI Center of Excellence.

NetApp Inc. reported record quarterly net revenue of $2.03 billion for Q1 FY27, up 30% year-over-year, with adjusted EPS of $2.58 and a quarterly cash dividend of $0.52 per share. All-flash array revenue surged 47% to a record $1.3 billion, driving the Hybrid Cloud segment to $1.8 billion, while Public Cloud revenue grew 28% to $206 million. The company completed the acquisition of DataPelago and launched several AI-focused products, but free cash flow fell 35% to $401 million. Management raised full-year guidance, projecting net revenues between $7.975 billion and $8.225 billion and adjusted EPS between $9.73 and $10.03.

In a notable earnings week, seven of eight key S&P 500 companies beat consensus EPS estimates, with all eight posting year-over-year profit growth, though revenue performance was mixed. Dell Technologies jumped 15.81% after reporting a 58% revenue increase to $46.97 billion and adjusted EPS of $7.04, driven by AI server demand, and guided third-quarter revenue to $49 billion. Palo Alto Networks slipped 9.28% despite beating estimates with revenue up 34% to $3.41 billion and adjusted EPS of $1.02, while issuing an optimistic forecast. Medtronic rose 1.53% after revenue grew 13.8% to $9.76 billion and raised its full-year guidance. Broadcom dropped 2.7% on lower-than-expected Q4 revenue guidance despite strong Q3 results with revenue up 86% to $29.59 billion. Lululemon shares fell nearly 20% after cutting its full-year sales forecast to $10.35B-$10.50B, down from $11.0B-$11.50B, due to declining China sales. Brown-Forman gained 3.87% on mixed results, NetApp rose 2.55% despite a free cash flow drop, and Campbell's fell 6.96% after missing revenue estimates and cutting its dividend by 36%.

NVIDIA Corp. shares rose 1.8% after the company decided to acquire AI developer platform Hugging Face for a total consideration of $12.9 billion. In other company news, Broadcom Inc. shares fell 2.7% after issuing weaker-than-expected revenue guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026. NetApp Inc. shares gained 2.6% after reporting first-quarter fiscal 2027 adjusted earnings of $2.58 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.13 per share. The Campbell's Co. shares tumbled 7% after posting fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 adjusted earnings of $0.39 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.40 per share.

NetApp reported fiscal first-quarter revenue of $2.03 billion, up 29.9% year over year, and EPS of $2.58, up from $1.55 a year ago, both beating Zacks Consensus Estimates. Revenue surpassed the $1.84 billion estimate by 9.86%, while EPS exceeded the $2.13 estimate by 21.13%. Key metrics also outperformed, with product revenue at $987 million versus the $807.36 million estimate, and hybrid cloud revenue at $1.82 billion versus the $1.65 billion estimate. The company's gross margin for products came in at 54.6%, above the 50.8% estimate, and services gross margin was 85.7%, above the 84.1% estimate. NetApp shares have declined 3.8% over the past month, compared to the S&P 500's 2% gain, and the stock holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Nutanix reported fourth quarter and fiscal 2026 financial results, with annual recurring revenue growing 16% year-over-year to $2.55 billion and strong free cash flow generation. For the fourth quarter, revenue rose 16% to $757.1 million, GAAP operating income was $70.0 million, and non-GAAP operating income was $198.0 million, with free cash flow of $277.6 million. For the full fiscal year, revenue increased 12% to $2.85 billion, GAAP operating income was $274.0 million, non-GAAP operating income was $675.4 million, and free cash flow reached $840.7 million. The company added over 3,000 new customers during the year and signed new or enhanced agreements with AMD, Lenovo, NetApp, and NVIDIA. Looking ahead, Nutanix guides first quarter fiscal 2027 revenue between $755 million and $765 million, and fiscal 2027 revenue between $3.180 billion and $3.230 billion, with non-GAAP operating margin of 24% to 25% and free cash flow of $850 million to $950 million.

Super Micro Computer shares are rising 6% to $40 midday Thursday, extending a rally that began after Tuesday afternoon's fiscal Q4 report. Peer AI server names are climbing alongside it, with Dell Technologies stock up 3% to $498 and Hewlett Packard Enterprise shares gaining 3% to $60.50. The continuation is driven by external read-across, not a fresh Super Micro catalyst, after Hong Kong-listed Lenovo reported April-June revenue up 43% year over year to $26.94 billion and an AI server pipeline swelling to $54 billion, up 157% sequentially. Morgan Stanley upgraded its U.S. IT hardware industry view to In-Line from Cautious, while Goldman Sachs named Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and NetApp its top U.S. hardware picks. Super Micro's fiscal Q4 revenue of $11.12 billion was up 93.2% year over year, with adjusted EPS of $1.70 versus $1.59 expected, and the company guided full-year fiscal 2027 revenue to $65 billion to $72 billion versus roughly $53.3 billion expected.

Several stocks made significant midday moves on Monday. MarineMax soared 46% after agreeing to be sold to Blackstone Infrastructure's Safe Harbor Marinas for $53 a share in cash, or $1.5 billion, with the deal expected to close by the end of 2026. Varex Imaging climbed 48% after Teledyne Technologies agreed to buy the imaging component maker for $18.90 a share in cash, a deal expected to close in early 2027. Sionna Therapeutics collapsed 92% after its cystic fibrosis drug failed to meet key endpoints in a proof-of-concept trial, and the company said it would not advance the drug. Other notable movers included NetApp, which gained 6% after Morgan Stanley upgraded it to equal weight from underweight, and Verisk Analytics, which tumbled more than 5% after a Delaware judge ruled it must proceed with a $2.35 billion acquisition of AccuLynx. Apple dipped 2% after Jefferies downgraded the stock to underperform from hold, citing canceled plans for an all-glass iPhone. Intel fell nearly 3% after announcing a $15 billion common stock offering for general corporate purposes.

Morgan Stanley has upgraded its U.S. IT hardware industry view to In-Line from Cautious, citing accelerating infrastructure demand driven by memory chipflation. Analyst Erik Woodring said enterprises increasingly see chipflation as a multi-year structural headwind and are accelerating purchases of PCs, servers, and storage to lock in favorable prices, a dynamic he called Fear of Missing Procurement. The firm upgraded Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Pure Storage to Overweight and NetApp to Equal-weight, while downgrading Teradata. Morgan Stanley now prefers storage over servers over PCs and raised estimates across its OEM universe, sitting 9% to 12% above consensus on 2026 and 2027 EPS. However, the firm stressed the tailwinds are primarily cyclical and warned that hardware stocks, up over 100% since the start of 2025, trade at historically expensive levels, with the cycle potentially rolling over beginning in 2027.

NetApp has acquired DataPelago, a startup specializing in AI data infrastructure, to expand its intelligent data portfolio with GPU-accelerated processing at the storage layer. The deal brings DataPelago's Nucleus engine, which enables zero-copy activation of enterprise data by performing accelerated computing directly where data resides, potentially delivering up to 10x faster processing and up to 80% infrastructure cost reductions. The acquisition strengthens NetApp's position in the competitive AI infrastructure market, where rivals like Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Teradata are also expanding through acquisitions. NetApp shares have gained 5% in the past month, outperforming the computer-storage devices industry's 19.1% decline, and the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2027 earnings has been revised upward over the past 60 days. NetApp currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Shares of hardware and infrastructure companies Everpure and NetApp rose sharply after IBM issued a revenue warning that indicated enterprise IT budgets are pivoting toward server and memory purchases. IBM pre-announced adjusted earnings of $2.93 per share on $17.2 billion in revenue, missing Wall Street estimates, with CEO Arvind Krishna attributing the shortfall to clients suddenly reallocating capital expenditure toward servers, storage, and memory in late June. The news sent Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise higher, while IBM dropped, highlighting a divergence between hardware vendors and traditional software or consulting providers. Everpure jumped 3.8% and NetApp surged 6.4% as analysts at Morgan Stanley noted the dynamic suggests strong enterprise demand for physical infrastructure driven by hardware refresh cycles and AI-related compute shortages. However, the surge may partly reflect short-term panic-buying ahead of expected price increases, and the durability of the trend will depend on sustained backlog growth in upcoming quarterly reports from Dell and HPE.

NetApp has been confirmed as Presenting Partner for the 2026 NFL Madrid and London Games, reinforcing its role as the league's Official Intelligent Data Infrastructure Partner. The company's share price stands at $165.78, with a 90-day return of 66.66% and a one-year total shareholder return of 57.67%. NetApp has also been added to several Russell 1000 defensive indexes. A popular valuation narrative suggests a fair value of $171.75, implying the stock is about 3.5% undervalued. This view is supported by substantial growth in Keystone Storage-as-a-Service, up roughly 80% year-over-year, and a 9% year-over-year increase in deferred revenue, indicating a shift toward subscription-based and as-a-service storage.

CGI and NetApp have deepened their global alliance to modernize IT infrastructure and improve data management. Under the partnership, NetApp Keystone will power CGI's block storage solutions within its shared service platform, offering a subscription-based service that adapts to changing business needs and helps customers accelerate critical block workloads. The storage solution includes built-in security with real-time threat detection, protection, and recovery. The companies also plan to advance artificial intelligence across private, public, and hybrid cloud environments, aiming to help clients build an intelligent data infrastructure supported by scalable storage capabilities.

StockStory identified two cash-producing stocks with exciting potential and one facing headwinds. SentinelOne, with a trailing 12-month free cash flow margin of 3.5%, is noted for its 22.8% annual recurring revenue growth and estimated 19.4% revenue growth over the next 12 months. NetApp, with a 27% free cash flow margin, has seen billings growth averaging 7.3% over two years and annual earnings per share growth of 15% driven by share buybacks. Carnival, with an 11.7% free cash flow margin, is flagged as risky due to disappointing passenger cruise days indicating weak demand and a low return on invested capital of 1.4%.

The 20 IT services and other tech stocks tracked in this roundup reported a strong first quarter, with aggregate revenues beating analysts' consensus estimates by 6.8% and next-quarter revenue guidance coming in 5.6% above expectations. Cisco posted revenue of $15.84 billion, up 12% year-on-year and exceeding estimates by 1.9%, while Applied Digital delivered the biggest beat among peers with revenue of $126.6 million, up 139% year-on-year and surpassing expectations by 67.3%. IonQ recorded the fastest revenue growth, with revenue of $64.67 million, up 755% year-on-year and beating estimates by 30%. NetApp reported revenue of $1.95 billion, up 12.5% year-on-year and beating estimates by 4.1%. Everforth was the weakest performer, with flat revenue of $968.3 million and next-quarter guidance that missed expectations, sending its stock down 57.8% since the results.

NetApp released StorageGRID 12.1 with a federated global namespace for AI workloads and announced that CGI Inc. will use NetApp Keystone for block storage solutions. The updates reinforce NetApp's AI and subscription narratives but do not fundamentally change near-term catalysts around converting AI wins into scaled deployments. The CGI Keystone expansion ties subscription-based storage to real-world AI modernization projects across hybrid clouds, which could grow higher-margin cloud revenue while also weighing on near-term cash flows if the mix shift accelerates. NetApp's narrative projects $8.3 billion in revenue and $1.7 billion in earnings by 2029, with a fair value estimate of $171.75 per share.

NetApp has released StorageGRID 12.1, introducing federated global namespaces and higher throughput to support large-scale, distributed AI operations, and expanded its global alliance with CGI to deliver intelligent data infrastructure across hybrid cloud environments. The update targets enterprises managing growing volumes of unstructured data across regions and platforms, while the broadened CGI relationship connects NetApp's storage stack with wider digital transformation and managed services projects. These developments position NetApp as a supplier of building blocks for AI training, inferencing, and data governance across private, public, and hybrid clouds.

CGI and NetApp have expanded their global alliance, with NetApp Keystone now powering CGI's block storage solutions within its shared services platform. The partnership combines NetApp's intelligent data infrastructure and scalable storage with CGI's expertise in digital transformation, cloud, AI, and managed services to help organizations modernize IT environments, improve data management, and advance AI initiatives across private, public, and hybrid clouds. NetApp Keystone provides a flexible subscription-based service for critical block workloads, offering industry-leading performance, intelligent data management, high availability, and built-in security with real-time threat detection. CGI will deliver services on behalf of NetApp, while NetApp will partner with CGI to deliver enterprise-grade data and storage services, enabling flexible, consumption-based solutions for joint clients across industries.