Caris & Co. Initiates 4 Software Cos.; Sees Value, Growth in Web-Hosted Apps

Caris & Company analyst Chris Shauger today initiated coverage of four enterprise software firms — Ariba (ARBA), Concur Technologies (CNQR), Salesforce.com (CRM), and Taleo (TLEO) — with “Buy,” “Average,” “Above Average,” and “Average” ratings on their shares, respectively. In brief, Shauger says that Ariba and Salesforce stock is cheap, Concur has dominant market share, and Taleo has accounting issues that cause concern for the stock despite a cheap valuation. All the stocks have been held back, he believes by the accounting issues at Taleo, but he thinks the problems with the latter are company-specific. The note is significant in that Salesforce just yesterday rallied after giving a forecast for the current quarter that was not as bad as expected. Salesforce is the poster-child for “On-demand” software, software that’s served up from a Web site, as opposed to in