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UPDATE 1-Wachovia cuts Blackbaud, VMware, Deltek

Mon Oct 6, 2008 8:26am EDT

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Oct 6 (Reuters) - Wachovia cut its rating on Blackbaud Inc (BLKB.O), Deltek Inc (PROJ.O) and VMware Inc (VMW.N) to "market perform" from "outperform", citing the current economic crisis and global credit crunch.

Analyst Philip Rueppel said the three companies had acute issues due to consumer base segmentation and growth expectations.

"We believe that investor confidence around IT spending continues to decline," said Rueppel in a note to clients.

Rueppel said key economic indicators like weakening consumer spending, decline in factory orders and new home sales were a sign of worry for software companies.

"We believe that software spending, as a lagging indicator of growth will show declines over the next several months," said Rueppel.

Rueppel cut his 2008 earnings estimate on Blackbaud to 96 cents a share from 98 cents a share and on Deltek by a cent to 73 cents a share. His 2009 estimate for VMware is $1.15 a share, dwon from $1.25 a share.

Shares of Blackbaud closed at $17.01 and shares of Deltek closed at $5.85 Friday on Nasdaq. Shares of VMware closed at $22.57 on New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Arup Roychoudhury in Bangalore; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

(arup.roychoudhury@thomsonreuters.com; within U.S. +1 646 223 8780; outside U.S. +91 80 4135 5800; Reuters Messaging: arup.roychoudhury.reuters.com@reuters.net))

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