Is F5 Networks Irrelevant?

Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research said fundamental investors should avoid
F5 Networks, Inc.
(NASDAQ:
FFIV
) as it is "irrelevant in the era of superclouds," and cautioned investors "not fall into this trap of Pseudo Earnings beat."

The company reported third-quarter EPS of $1.81 per share, topping Street view of $1.79 per share.

"Fundamental investors should not fall into this trap of earnings beats and wrongly think all is fine with this company. FFIV is going to get their dose of reality within a couple of quarters," Chowdhry wrote in a note.

Chowdhry's research on infrastructure architecture of Microsoft's Azure, Amazon's AWS and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) shows that none of these superclouds use F5 Networks.

"All these SuperClouds use bare metal and on top of that, they have their own software secret sauce. AMZN AWS has plenty of secret sauce in their Cloud Fabric, that they even don't want to file Patents, since then competition knows the inner working of its Cloud Fabric," Chowdhry highlighted.

Commenting on private equity firms buying F5 Networks, Chowdhry noted that the recent moves of various private equity companies suggests "that they are completely clueless and setting themselves for a major disappointment."

"Private Equity companies old recipe of milking the Past is going to fail in the Era of SuperClouds," Chowdhry added.

At time of writing, shares of F5 Networks rose 1.63 percent to $123.45. They have gained about 26 percent this year.

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