Young tech companies typically don't have much cash to spare. If they start growing rapidly, they usually spend their excess money expanding their businesses. But that momentum inevitably wanes, and mature tech companies often run out of ways to deploy their capital -- so they spend their cash on stock buybacks or dividend disbursements instead.
Many companies offer generous buyback and dividend plans. Texas Instruments (NASDAQ: TXN), for example, consistently returns "all" of its free cash flow (FCF) to investors via buybacks and dividends.
However, other companies are more frugal than TI and pay lower dividends than they can afford. Today, I'll highlight four mature tech companies that should raise their dividends to reward patient shareholders.