UPDATE: J.P. Morgan Upgrades VMware on Ample Room for Growth

In a report published Friday, J.P. Morgan analyst John DiFucci upgraded the rating on

from Neutral to Overweight, and raised the price target from $89.00 to $100.00. In the report, J.P. Morgan noted, “This is the first of a series of reports assessing the opportunity associated with VMW's various businesses and technologies. In this report, we focus primarily on the remaining opportunity in VMW's core market for x86 server virtualization software, which represents about 70% of VMW's license bookings. While 75% of x86 workloads has been virtualized as of 2012, we estimate that only 34% of x86 compute capacity (as measured by CPUs, which VMW's pricing is based on) has been virtualized, suggesting ample room for growth. Hence, we are upgrading VMW to Overweight from Neutral and raising our Dec. 14 PT to $100 from $89.” VMware closed on Thursday at $78.74.