< The 2014 All-America Research TeamBrent ThillUBSFirst-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 8

Team debut: 2007Rising from third place to No. 2, the position he most recently earned in 2008, is Brent Thill of UBS. Working out of San Francisco, he reports on 29 U.S. software names and intends to add more through year’s end as initial public offerings increase. Money managers praise the analyst for what one dubs his “rally in the alley” bus trips to put investors in front of company management teams. Thill’s top pick is Redmond, Washington–based Microsoft Corp. “While Wall Street was too focused on the personal computer side, Microsoft has been engineering a broader shift to the cloud, steadily returning excess capital to shareholders, and still trades at a favorable multiple for a company that could significantly improve its operating margin profile over time,” he explains. His price objective of $50 represents an 8.1 percent premium to the shares’ mid-September trading value. Thill “was early to recognize the changes at Microsoft,” remarks another booster, “and he saw the weakness in Jive Software before the pack.” Looking ahead, the researcher anticipates uneven performance by companies in his sector next year. “It’s a tale of two cities — on one side you see pure-play software vendors that have modern architectures and will continue to do well,” he explains. “On the other side of town, you have legacy vendors that have not addressed the shift to cloud and subscription and will stall out.”