Best Tech Companies To Watch For 2014

Of the thousands of stocks that trade on U.S. exchanges, the list of Dividend Aristocrats includes only a handful of companies that have been able to raise their dividend payouts every year for a quarter century or longer. Yet the Aristocrats define dividend growth as any increase in the payout, no matter how small, and so some stocks demonstrate better growth prospects than others.

Until recently, Consolidated Edison (NYSE: ED  ) was arguably one of those stocks that made the Aristocrats list on a technicality, as it had made minimal half-penny increases in its quarterly payout for more than 15 years. But this past year, the utility boosted its dividend by a full penny, and while that's small, it could be significant in signaling an acceleration of its dividend increases. Let's take a closer look at Consolidated Edison to see whether this faster dividend growth is likely to continue.

Best Tech Companies To Watch For 2014: Tessera Technologies Inc.(TSRA)

Tessera Technologies, Inc., through its subsidiaries, develops, licenses, and delivers miniaturization technologies and products for electronic devices worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Intellectual Property and DigitalOptics. The Intellectual Property segment offers semiconductor packaging technologies, which create mechanical and electrical connection between semiconductor chips and systems, such as computers and communication equipments through connection to printed circuit boards. The DigitalOptics segment provides mobile camera module solutions in categories, including actuator technologies, image enhancement solutions, and wafer level optics that can be applied to mobile phones and other consumer electronic products. It also offers customized micro-optic lenses from diffractive and refractive optical elements to integrated micro-optical subassemblies. This segment serves customers in digital still cameras and mobile handsets markets, as well as semicon ductor lithography, high-end communication routers, military and defense, and barcode scanners markets. Tessera Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.

Best Tech Companies To Watch For 2014: Spirent Plc(SPT.L)

Spirent Communications plc operates as a communications technology company in Europe, the Asia Pacific, the Americas, and Africa. It operates in three segments: Performance Analysis, Service Assurance, and Systems. The Performance Analysis segment provides solutions that test current and next-generation communications technologies in the lab. It develops test solutions for the engineers in the communications industry that allow them to evaluate the performance of the latest technologies, infrastructure, and applications to be deployed worldwide. This segment also offers tools for service technicians and field test engineers to enhance network quality and make troubleshooting of live networks. In addition, it allows network equipment and mobile device manufacturers, service providers, enterprises, and government entities to test and benchmark the performance of their networks, network elements, mobile devices, and services; and delivers solutions, which address high speed E thernet, data center, cloud computing, virtualization, IMS, IPTV, location based services, multi-GNSS satellite technologies, 3G and 4G/LTE wireless, and other technologies. The Service Assurance segment provides network monitoring and field test solutions for live networks. This segment allows service providers to diagnose, troubleshoot, and determine how to resolve issues with networks and systems within the live network. The Systems segment supplies electronic control systems for electrically powered vehicles in the medical mobility and industrial markets. These include vehicles, such as powered wheelchairs and mobility scooters, as well as industrial vehicles, including floor cleaning equipment, fork-lift trucks, aerial access platforms, and golf carts. Spirent Communications plc was founded in 1936 and is headquartered in Crawley, the United Kingdom.

Top 5 Undervalued Companies To Invest In Right Now: Wave Systems Corp.(WAVX)

Wave Systems Corp. develops, produces, and markets products for hardware-based digital security. Its products are based on the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), a hardware security chip that enables secure protection of files and other digital secrets, and performs critical security functions. The company offers EMBedded Application Security SYstem (EMBASSY) Trust Suite, a set of applications and services that are designed to bring functionality and user value to TPM enabled products. The EMBASSY Trust Suite includes the EMBASSY Security Center, Trusted Drive Manager, Document Manager, Private Information Manager, and Key Transfer Manager. It also offers middleware and tools, which include Trusted Computing Group (TCG) enabled toolkit that assists application developers in writing new applications or modifying existing ones to function on TCG-compliant platforms; and Wave TCG-Enabled Cryptographic Service Provider, which allows software developers to utilize the security of a TCG standards-based platform. In addition, the company offers EMBASSY Trust Server Applications comprising EMBASSY Key Management Server, a server application designed to provide corporate-level backup and transition of the TPM keys; EMBASSY Authentication Server that offers centralized management, provisioning, and enforcement of multifactor domain access policies; and EMBASSY Remote Administration Server, which provides centralized management and auditing of TPMs and self-encrypting drives. Further, it offers eSign Transaction Management Suite and broadband media distribution services. Wave Systems Corp. sells its products to chip original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), PC OEMs, enterprise customers, and systems integrators. The company was formerly known as Cryptologics International, Inc. and changed its name to Wave Systems Corp. in January 1993. Wave Systems Corp. was founded in 1988 and is based in Lee, Massachusetts.

Best Tech Companies To Watch For 2014: LSI Logic Corporation (LSI)

LSI Corporation designs, develops, and markets storage and networking semiconductors worldwide. It offers integrated circuits for hard disk and tape drive solutions, which are used to store and retrieve data in personal computers, corporate network servers, archive/back-up devices, and consumer electronics products. The company�s storage electronics products include systems-on-a-chip, read channels, pre-amplifiers, serial physical interfaces, and hard disk controllers, as well as custom firmware required to read, write, and protect data. It also offers pre-amplifiers, which are used to amplify the initial signal to and from the drive disk heads; and solutions that transmit data between a host computer and storage peripheral devices. In addition, the company provides custom and standard networking solutions that include chips, such as network processors, digital signal processors, content-inspection processors, traffic shaping devices, and physical layer devices, as well a s software, evaluation systems, and reference designs for office, home office, and small-to-medium business applications; flash storage processors; server storage semiconductor products, and server RAID adapters and software; and high-speed interface intellectual property that combine with customers� intellectual property to provide a connection to the SAN, memory systems, and host buses. Further, it offers networking solutions include communication processors, network processors, media processors, content-inspection processors, and physical layer devices, as well as software tools and segment specific applications, evaluation systems, and reference designs. The company was formerly known as LSI Logic Corporation and changed its name to LSI Corporation in April 2007. The company was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Milpitas, California.