Paychex: SaaS Roll-Up, Please

On March 25, Paychex, Inc (NASDAQ:PAYX) reported third quarter results that met analyst estimates. However, the company cut its fiscal-year revenue forecast for a third time and said it expects the economy to continue to be difficult through 2009 and into fiscal 2010. I have been tracking the performance of this leading payroll and personnel services

Read Full Article »

3Com’s Turnaround Looks Promising

3Com, one of the key networking players with annual revenue of $1.3 billion, has been steadily improving. In its 3Q results for fiscal 2009 reported on March 19, 3Com Corporation (NASDAQ:COMS) reported a third consecutive quarter of profits that beat estimates. The company’s performance was driven by its cost control efforts and strength in China

Read Full Article »

Oracle’s SaaS Targets

In my recent piece on Oracle, I said, Oracle’s entry into SaaS is inevitable, and it will happen probably as early as this year. Let’s look at two companies that are potential acquisitions for Oracle this year.

Promising athenahealth

In a season in which so many companies are producing disappointing results, gems like athenahealth still exist. athenahealth (NASDAQ:ATHN) is a leading provider for the healthcare industry’s billing and practice management solutions. athenahealth just completed its first year as a public company. I recently spoke with Jonathan Bush, athenahealth’s CEO. You can read the interview here.

InterDigital Looks Good

On March 2, InterDigital reported a strong fourth quarter. As we saw in our most recent post on the company, InterDigital resolved its long-running 2G and 3G licensing disputes with Samsung. This resulted in their signing a 2G and 3G patent agreement with Samsung that will generate $400 million cash over 18 months. With this deal,

Read Full Article »

Samsung Balances In Two Major Markets

Weak demand and economic conditions in the semiconductor sector finally have taken a toll on Samsung Electronics, the world’s second-largest semiconductor producer. On January 23, Samsung reported its first ever quarterly loss in in the fourth quarter and in fact its first ever loss since 2000, when it started reporting quarterly results. However, the good

Read Full Article »

Oracle and SaaS: Inevitable

After reporting a solid third quarter that beat estimates and declaring its first dividend, on Monday Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) decided to go on a shopping spree. It started the quarter by acquiring Relsys International, which provides drug safety and risk management software. There are also speculations about Oracle acquiring Red Hat, but the enterprise software giant

Read Full Article »

LeapFrog Lows

The recession does not seem to be good for the educational gaming company LeapFrog, which announced rather depressing Q4 2008 results earlier this month. The company has been trying to do a turnaround and with its new product, Tag, the 2008 holiday season was extremely critical.